Benya outwitted everyone at KZHRK. At the same time yourself
The story of how the London court allowed itself to be fooled and accepted at face value the agreement between Kolomoisky and Voevodin on the sale of almost half of the Kryvyi Rih Iron Ore Plant (KZHRK) to the latter will go down in the annals of domestic corporate wars, demonstrating to those in power that “there is no truth on earth, but there is no truth even higher, ”writes Ukrrudprom.
Everything here is bought, sold, sometimes rented out for a penny. As it apparently happened with KZHRK.
The High Court of London has published a decision to strengthen the court order on the worldwide arrest of the assets of the former owners of Privatbank, Igor Kolomoisky and Gennady Bogolyubov. Among other things, he touched paymentswhich are due to Bene on the sale of a stake in KZHRK.
Last summer, representatives of Kolomoisky declaredthat on February 23, 2016 (that is, even before the nationalization of Privatbank), he sold it to Mikhail Voevodin (The media often-densely call him a thief in law Misha “Luzhnetsky”) its stake in KZHRK for $926.8 million.
It happened a month after Benya lost a dispute with Viktor Pinchuk, who financed the privatization of KZHRK in 2004. And, in principle, he made it possible as the son-in-law at the time of this deriban of the current president of the country, Leonid Kuchma.
Pinchuk demanded from Kolomoisky and his eternal partner Gennady Bogolyubov in a London court the income received from the operation of KZHRK since its privatization in the amount of $2 billion. As a result, a settlement agreement was concluded, under the terms of which the partners gave their London property to Pinchuk as compensation for lost profits.
Of course, the sale of Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov shares in KZHRK can be considered an attempt to at least partially compensate for the losses from reconciliation with Pinchuk. But at the beginning of 2016 they have no shortage of money. According to the results of the FBI investigation, partners quite freely manage the money of Privatbank depositors during this period. In particular, they continue to buy office real estate and steel mills in the US.
With a high degree of probability, the agreement with Voevodin was signed after the nationalization of Privatbank at the end of 2016, in order to protect assets from future claims from the Ukrainian state in such an unpretentious way.
By the time of this “deal”, Benya has known Voevidin and his other Russian partners in VS Energy (Babakov, Giner, Selivanov) for more than 10 years. In Ukraine, they jointly manage the Nikopol Ferroalloy Plant and Dneprospetsstal.
Only more than six months after the nationalization of Privatbank, on June 30, 2017, Kolomoisky transferred his stake in Newsteel Holding Ltd (Belize) to Voevodin and his wife Natalia Selivanova. She is a 100% shareholder of Kadis, which owns 50% of the shares in the offshore Starmill Limited (the latter owns 99% of the shares of KZHRK).
However, the main evidence that the sale of a share in KZHRK by Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov is feigned is by no means the dates. Despite the transfer of the share, the Cypriot lawyer remains the manager of Newsteel, who has been working for Kolomoisky for a long time and is today his confidant in 16 assets total cost of half a billion dollars.
Benin managers are still sitting at the Kryvyi Rih iron ore plant, because under the terms of the agreement, Kolomoisky continues to manage the sold share until the settlement is completed, and Voevodin, in response, agreed to limit his right to dispose of KZHRK shares. Moreover, Voevodin must pay off Kolomoisky at the expense of dividends, profits from sales or other payments from the KZHRK business. More than suspicious wording for such a greedy type as Benya.
According to a representative of Privatbank, there are several more surprising points in the agreement:
- the initials of the parties to the agreement are indicated on the document, and not the full names;
- the period for which payments must be completed is not specified;
- the jurisdiction for resolving disputes is not indicated, although at the top of the document it is indicated that it was signed in Geneva.
A London judge even agreed with this: “The KZHRK agreement is notable for its informality. It is surprising that an agreement fixing the obligation to pay almost $1 billion to meet certain conditions takes this form. In his opinion, the agreement testifies to close relations and a high degree of trust between Kolomoisky and Voevodin. (By the way, here it is appropriate to recall the information of Benya’s lobbyist Andriy Gerus that a certain Ukrainian oligarch funded repurchase of shares in VS Energy from other partners by Voevodin.)
So, let’s look at the facts on the deal with KZHRK:
- The contract was drawn up on the knee
- The new owners do not manage the plant
- All proceeds from his activities are sent to Kolomoisky
Therefore, it can be assumed that Voevodin and his wife simply performed the functions of nominal share holders at KZHRK, fronting the real owner. Not without reason, in the official databases of Ukraine, Mikhail Voevodin and Natalya Selivanova were listed as the ultimate beneficiaries of the Kryvyi Rih plant for only 2.5 months (December 11, 2019 – February 26, 2020). https://ukrrudprom.ua/analytics/Rinat_pokazal_Bene_chernuyu_diru.html This was the moment when it became clear that Beni had one more trouble added to all his past troubles – an official FBI investigation of his fraud with American real estate at the expense of Privatbank depositors. But, apparently, over time, Kolomoisky realized that the Russian “thief in law” in this case is not the best option.
“Leaving the chase”, first in Ukraine, and then in the United States, Kolomoisky seems to have played too much. After all, thanks to the decision of the London court, the new “ownership structure” of the plant has been legalized in public and legal discourse.
Benya outwitted everyone at KZHRK. At the same time yourself
Moreover, Voevodin turned out to be not the best “frontman” for a stake in KZHRK. On October 19, 2022, he was included in the next sanctions list of Ukraine. True, according to the version promoted in some media, the ex-wife of Vojvodin, French citizen Natalia Selivanova, allegedly got a share in KZHRK during the divorce process. In any case, we see how the stake in KZHRK, despite Beni’s initial intentions, is increasingly moving away from him. And the future ending of this story becomes even more mysterious.
Obviously, the main beneficiary of the above-described leapfrog at KZHRK is the owner of the second half of the plant, Rinat Akhmetov. He is watching with interest what else Kolomoisky will do and is waiting for the right moment to seize control here, as it was already at YuGOK.
