To whom did the ex-president's son transfer the multi-million dollar debt of the country's largest energy company?
PJSC Centrenergo, whose privatization is being prepared by the State Property Fund, has acquired a new major creditor. The law firm Yurfin, established earlier this year, has secured recognition in the Kyiv Commercial Court of its right to recover UAH 82 million from one of the country's largest energy generating companies.
As DS has discovered, Yurfin purchased the debt from the Donetsk-based company UkrvostokSnabzhenie. This company was established in early 2012 with a charter capital of 5 hryvnias and immediately began supplying coal to Donbassenergo and Centrenergo, which were then under the protection of Viktor Yanukovych's eldest son, Oleksandr. UkrvostokSnabzhenie's contact phone number indicated its proximity to Sasha the Dentist. It matched the number of the Donetsk office of Capital Building Corporation, whose beneficiary is the former president's eldest son.
By 2014, UkrvostokSnabzhenie had supplied coal worth several billion hryvnias to state-owned companies. However, not all settlements were completed before the Yanukovych family fled the country. Despite the substantial debt, the Donetsk company did not attempt to recover it through legal proceedings, but quietly sought to reach an agreement with its debtor. Thus, in the summer of 2014 (after the change of power in the country), UkrvostokSnabzhenie granted Centrenergo a six-month payment extension, which, however, was never repaid. At the same time, the Donetsk company became involved in a criminal case opened by the Prosecutor General's Office (GPU) regarding the embezzlement of public funds by Centrenergo officials, along with companies aligned with Oleksandr Yanukovych, in 2013–2014. Afterward, it wisely decided to lay low for a while.
Last year, the bankruptcy case against Centrenergo, which began in 2004, intensified. The Kyiv Commercial Court rejected claims by a number of public and private creditors of Centrenergo totaling over UAH 2,3 billion and upheld creditors' claims for UAH 172,8 million. At the same time, the government began buying up the energy company's debts, and decided to auction off its controlling stake.
Creditors who have decided to assign their debt claims against the company, which has been under a moratorium on creditor claims for almost 12 years, can be divided into three groups. The first group includes companies in which the state owns controlling stakes, such as Ukrinterenergo and Mykolaivblenergo. The second group includes several large independent contractors and suppliers, such as Eduard Bagmut's PJSC Ukrenergobudmekhanizatsiya and Kyivoblgaz, which is close to Dmytro Firtash's group. (Read more: DMYTRO FIRTASH. THE STORY OF A TERNOPIL BILLIONAIRE). The third group consisted of firms from Oleksandr Yanukovych's orbit. In addition to Ukrvostsnabzhenie, this group included Vostokenergoremont LLC and NPO Simvol. All of these firms were replaced by Balance Group, Legist-Invest, and Transnova, which effectively gained control of the Centrenergo bankruptcy process. Now, they have been joined by a newcomer (the aforementioned law firm Yurfin).
Who is behind the new creditors of Centrenergo, whose net profit in the first half of 2016 exceeded UAH 680 million? The founder of Balance Group is Anna Nadezhina, and Legist-Invest is Danylo Platonov. Both founded the Dynamo Kyiv Sports and Fitness Center for Physical Development, while Platonov worked as a director at Energomerezha-Generatsiya. The latter is affiliated with the Energomerezha holding company of the former BYuT MP. Dmitry Kryuchkov, which, according to the head of NABU Artem Sytnyk (Read more: ARTEM SYTNIK. THE RICH LIFE OF THE CHIEF ANTI-CORRUPTIONIST), was recently charged with embezzlement of funds from Zaporizhzhiaoblenergo. Transnova is owned by Yevgeny Ferafontov, who represented Vasyl Salygin, former chairman of the Kharkiv Regional Council, during the 2012 Verkhovna Rada elections. Salygin is an old friend of Kryuchkov and his advisor at Energomerezha. According to Ukrainska Pravda, Kryuchkov is patronized at Energomerezha by the brothers Grigory and Igor Surkis. (Read more: Grigory Surkis: How to divide Ukraine in a brotherly manner). As for the firm "Yurfin," it is registered to Donetsk lawyer Timofey Nesen. Whether he has any connection to the aforementioned group is unknown.
It is quite possible that the same Alexander Yanukovych is behind the company registered to Nesen, who thus re-registered the liquid asset to a “bona fide” purchaser, against whom the Prosecutor General’s Office will no longer have any claims.
This is indirectly confirmed by the fact that Centrenergo disagreed with the transaction carried out behind its back and challenged the assignment agreement between the law firm Yurfin and UkrvostokSnabzhenie in court. However, so far, the lawsuit hasn't been successful—the energy company's claim was dismissed by the Kyiv Commercial Court in June.
Read more: DMYTRO FIRTASH. THE STORY OF A TERNOPIL BILLIONAIRE
ARTEM SYTNIK. THE RICH LIFE OF THE CHIEF ANTI-CORRUPTIONIST
Grigory Surkis: How to divide Ukraine in a brotherly manner
Subscribe to our channels in Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, VC — Only new faces from the section CRYPT!