Alexander Yaroslavsky
A Kharkiv millionaire has sent his company, which owes billions of hryvnias to creditor banks, on a debt holiday, reports OLIGARKH.
The former owner of the Metalist football club is clearly tired of sitting on the bench for the Ukrainian oligarchs' national team. This week, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky's PR team (Read more about it in the help: Alexander Yaroslavsky: The Three Marriages of the Kharkiv "King") decided to remind the public of the weight and significance of their boss with the help of a simple placement of materials based on a laudatory publication in the newspaper "Business" about how he invested $1 billion in Kharkiv, since "his small homeland remains dear to the heart of a businessman."
According to PR experts, the stated sum included $300 million of Yaroslavsky's own funds, invested in Kharkiv's preparations for Euro 2012, as well as $270 million he spent on Metalist, which he sold to Oleksandr Yanukovych's favorite schemer, Serhiy Kurchenko, in 2012. What the remaining funds were spent on remains unclear. However, among the businessman's successful projects, the Kharkiv Tractor Plant was also mentioned, the purchase of which was described as "a challenge Yaroslavsky set for himself," as well as the Karavan chain, which includes three shopping malls located in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipro. According to Yaroslavsky's DCH group, he purchased it in 2013 in partnership with the investment funds Citigroup and Apollo (USA).
Last year, in an interview with the Ukrainian Retailers Association, Oleksandr Yaroslavsky radiated optimism when commenting on the state of affairs at Karavan. "I'm pleased with Karavan's performance, and the funds are happy too," he said. Separately, the owner of DCH touched on relations with creditors, stating, "We always pay our bills. We've restructured loans and are paying our obligations. We have good relationships with the banks." However, since then, it appears the approach has changed.
As OLIGARKH has discovered, the Kyiv Commercial Court recently officially launched bankruptcy proceedings against Yaroslavsky's private joint-stock company, Lex Holding, the owner of Kyiv's Karavan, located on Lugovoy Street. By court order, the company's assets have already been disposed of, and Nadezhda Aleksenko, an insolvency administrator from Cherkasy, has been appointed to manage them. Most interestingly, the bankruptcy was initiated by a company from Yaroslavsky's hometown, Egida Legal Services Center LLC, which filed a claim against Lex Holding for 600 hryvnias. Its founder is listed as a little-known Kharkiv lawyer, Serhiy Senik, who is rumored to have a very trusting relationship with DCH. Therefore, the bankruptcy proceedings initiated at his instigation can be considered quite manageable.
That same "Caravan" on Lugovaya Street
Why would Yaroslavsky want his flagship shopping mall to go bankrupt? The answer is simple: he doesn't want to lose it. According to sources at OLIGARKH, the businessman was unable to agree on a loan extension with VTB Bank, a Russian government-controlled bank that holds the Kyiv Karavan complex as collateral. VTB has been financing Karavan's projects since 2008, when Andrey Gordienko and Sergey Khripkov owned Karavan, lending the group over $100 million. In 2013, the bank opened a credit line for Lex Holding with a maturity date of August 2016, the debt on which has now exceeded 1,7 billion hryvnia.
Yaroslavsky's company is unable to independently earn enough to repay the debt—its annual turnover does not exceed 200 million hryvnias. Therefore, the bankruptcy of Lex Holding, with the imposition of a moratorium on satisfying its creditors' claims, can be seen as a preemptive strike by Yaroslavsky, who "always pays his bills," against VTB to prevent it from repossessing the mortgaged property. This is especially true since in August, another major creditor, the Cypriot company Spherus Management Limited, filed a claim against Lex Holding for an amount identical to VTB's—approximately 1,7 billion hryvnias. This action occurred shortly after Yaroslavsky's company, citing its dire financial situation, informed all creditors that it was no longer able to meet its obligations.
So we can now expect some very exciting developments in the bankruptcy proceedings of Lex Holding, which may well end with Yaroslavsky's assets being auctioned off.
Egor KAZHANOV, "OLIGARCH"
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