Vadim Grib. He was called the number one raider, but he was hired by the SBU.

Vadim Grib

Like most of today's major businessmen, Vadim Grib began his career during the turbulent 90s, when factories were being bought for pennies, but maintaining them required "friendship" with the gangsters. Grib began his business in the crime-ridden city of Tolyatti, where shootouts and showdowns were commonplace in the daily lives of entrepreneurs.

In 1989, the businessman founded LogoVAZ in Tolyatti, which sold VAZ products. Just two years later, the company became the official importer of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the Soviet Union. It's worth noting that from 1991 to 1995, Vadim Grib served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Securities, a period considered the pinnacle of his political career.

Moving to Ukraine

The Russian corporate raider moved to Ukraine in 1995, when privatization was in full swing and the securities market was still very, very raw. It was in Ukraine that Vadym Grib's skills in "resolving corporate conflicts" were fully utilized. Without hesitation, Vadym Valentinovich founded the investment company "TEKT," which became one of the leading companies in Ukraine (it still exists today). By buying and seizing businesses for resale, he rose to the top of the list of corporate raiders in Ukraine. Grib managed to swindle privatization vouchers from people, buy shares with them, and then resell them, siphoning off the proceeds offshore. Among other things, he resold shares in Motor Sich, Kryukov Carriage Works, Mykolaiv Yantar Brewery, Azovstal, and many others.

After arriving in Ukraine, Grib began actively seeking ways to obtain citizenship and cover up his business. He achieved this with the help of the future people's deputy of the 4th convocation, Anatoly Matvienko, who at that time worked for the foundation. Leonid Kravchuk.

Anatoly Matvienko

Incidentally, it was Matviyenko who introduced former SBU head Valeriy Khoroshkovsky to former Prime Minister Valeriy Pustovoitenko in 1998, who launched his career as SBU head. Grib and Khoroshkovsky, in turn, shared a common business – Ukrsotsbank, which was later sold to Viktor Pinchuk (Read more about it in the article Viktor Pinchuk: Ukraine's richest son-in-law).

Over time, corporate raiding became Grib's primary business. In 2006-2007, he made a fortune at Rosinka. He bought Rosinka from its employees for $18 million and resold it to the French Orangina Group for $60 million. He also made numerous other deals, but no one stopped him. Perhaps this was also because Grib began actively wooing promising politicians. In particular, Vadym Grib was a sponsor of Yushchenko, and even served as a pro bono adviser to Prime Minister Yushchenko from October 2000 to May 2001. It was then that he began engaging in corporate raiding.

After a successful start-up, Vadim Valentinovich decided to try his hand at politics, and by 2005, he was serving as acting Minister of Finance of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and also as Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs. However, things didn't work out for him in Crimea. After creating a couple of companies and squeezing out as many positions as possible, he and his friend Anatoly Matvienko resigned.

The most "outstanding" corporate raid

In 2001, when Vadym Hryb was serving as an aide to Prime Minister Viktor Yushchenko, he orchestrated a corporate raid on Rosava CJSC. The Pirelli tire line had been installed at the Belotserkovsky tire plant during the Soviet era of perestroika. With Ukraine's independence, the company enjoyed unlimited opportunities. It produced products of comparable quality to European tires, but at a significantly lower price.

The plant had a small tax debt, and despite the situation not being critical, the tax administration decided to seize the company's assets and auction them off to pay off the debt. Grib's involvement in this scheme is evident from the fact that he was the only one to learn of Rosava's auction not just promptly, but exactly to the minute the decision was made. Naturally, he bought the enterprise for a pittance. The case was so high-profile that even Leonid Kuchma, then president, dedicated a special television appearance to it, publicly demanding justice, but Rosava remained in Grib's hands. He subsequently successfully resold it.

First Coming to the SBU

Grib's next foray into government service was in 2010, when, following Viktor Yanukovych's election victory, his former business partner, Valeriy Khoroshkovsky, became the new head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). According to Vadym Grib, he worked exclusively in analytics at the agency. It was known in advance that the businessman and corporate raider intended to work for the SBU; even before his appointment, he was tipped to head the Main Directorate for Analysis and Forecasting. Upon joining the SBU, he gained leverage to organize new financial frauds and corporate raiding activities. Indeed, before joining the SBU, TEKT's PR team meticulously scrubbed the internet of any negative mentions of Mr. Grib.

Valery Khoroshkovsky

Later, when Khoroshkovsky was first appointed head of the Ministry of Finance and then deputy prime minister, Vadim Valentinovich became his right-hand man; it was he who led the group of advisers to the first deputy prime minister.

The Gribov "Business Family"

Vadim Grib is a distrustful person by nature. Perhaps this is why almost all of his businesses are registered solely to him and his family members. His son Roman owns the companies Basten, TEKT-Realty, TEKT-Privat, the law firm TEKT-Real, and other smaller ones. Vadim's sister, Elena, was the owner of TEKT-Brok (based in Crimea). Vadim Valentinovich's niece, Olga Ponomareva (Elena's daughter), owns a significant portion of his businesses. Among other things, she is a co-founder of TEKT-Realty, TEKT-Brok, and the Chistaya Liniya concern. Vadim Grib's wife, Svetlana Boyarkina, is also involved in business. She is the founder of two TEKT-Plus pharmacies, and was previously the founder of TEKT-Realty and the Volodar Credit Union.

Incidentally, almost every company Vadim Valentinovich co-founded is a woman named Svetlana Bolotina, including Mining and Metallurgical Company LLC, the Volodar Credit Union, and the Chistaya Liniya concern. She plays a significant role in the management of Vadim Grib's companies.

Svetlana Bolotina's official places of work according to her Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN):

· 30965388 – Financial Company LLC;

· 25904754 – Credit Union "Volodar";

· 31351050 – Legal Company LLC;

· 3509539 – Scientific and production commercial LLC;

· 2767205 – ZAT "TEKT-Brok";

· 23697699 – ZAT “Investment Fund”;

· 32912296 – OOO TEKT-Trade;

· 2071894 – ZAT “Insurance Company” Kashtan”;

· 32310518 – LLC “Concern Chistaya Liniya”;

· 0393384 – ZAT “Management Company”.

Will Vadim Grib work for the SBU again?

Sources within the SBU claim that Vadym Hryb may soon receive a new position within the SBU, while he remains a member of the National Securities and Stock Market Commission, where his opinion is key and authoritative in the Commission's determination of cases of corporate raiding. In light of information that Hryb is actively communicates with one of the "key" terrorists in eastern Ukraine, Denis Pushilin, which leaked online on August 27, raises the question of how the authorities justify his appointment to the SBU and how his work in a government agency is connected to the corporate raids in the East.

Local elections are about to begin in Ukraine, and it's quite possible that Vadym Hryb, who continues to vie for power, will also run in them (in the previous snap parliamentary elections, he was number 19 on the electoral list as a member of Serhiy Tihipko's Strong Ukraine party). Whether he succeeds remains to be seen, but if he is reinstated in the SBU, more corporate raids are to be expected.

Dmitry Samofalov, for SKELET-info

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