A scam perpetrated by the Russian RENAISSANCE in Ukraine

Renaissance There is discord between Renaissance, or the story of how the American Renaissanse never opened in Kyiv, and the Russian Renaissance deceived the Ukrainian budget

This story is about how an ordinary, at first glance, reconstruction of a building in Kyiv turned out to be a multimillion-dollar scam from which the Ukrainian budget and Ukrainian contractors suffered, while foreign companies benefited, including those who “go through life very closely” with the President of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) and his entourage .

To begin with, it’s worth telling the background story and getting to know its participants.

“Grand Plaza” and Mohammad Zahoor

In November 2009, the media disseminated information about a major transaction on the Kyiv commercial real estate market. The owner of the Lvov concern “House of Grandees” Gennady Shenshaft sold his hotel project in Kyiv to the Istil group of Mohammad Zahur. We were talking about the Leipzig Hotel on the corner of Proriznaya and Vladimirskaya streets, which had been in the “unfinished” category for many years. The transaction was carried out through the sale of the Grand Plaza subsidiary to the Istil group, which is the owner of the property. The transaction amount was $35 million. At the time of the announcement of the deal, the Istil group declared an investment volume of $25 million, and the completion of the reconstruction of the building and the opening of a hotel in it by Euro 2012.

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

In July 2011, the Board of Directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development allocated a loan of $27 million to the Grand Plaza DP for the reconstruction of the Leipzig Hotel.

International hotel chain “Marriott International”

In May 2012, representatives of the Istil group announced the conclusion of a management agreement for the five-star Renaissance Kyiv hotel (formerly Leipzig) with the international hotel chain Marriott International, with the hotel opening planned for the 1st quarter of 2013.

Renaissance Construction represented by the Ukrainian LLC Renaissance Engineering and Construction

Plans for opening in 2013 were based on the participation of another major player in the project – the Renaissance Construction group (represented by the Ukrainian subsidiary Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC), the general contractor for the reconstruction of a semi-abandoned building into a five-star hotel.

In news reports, Renaissance Construction is presented as a Turkish company, which it is purely due to the nationality of its founder, Erman Ilicak, but in fact the company is Russian. The company was founded in 1993 in St. Petersburg. Renaissance Construction has built about 500 projects since its inception. But something else is interesting in the history of the company – the path of creation and development of the company coincides both chronologically and geographically with the path of the President of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) V.V. Putin (*criminal): in the 90s, Putin (*criminal) started at the mayor’s office of St. Petersburg, at the same time the history of Renaissance began, as Vladimir Vladimirovich’s career grew, so did the company.

After all, Vladimir Vladimirovich’s “commitment” to St. Petersburg personnel is well known: Sechin, Medvedev (*criminal), Zubkov, Kudrin, Miller, Gref, Ivanov, Naryshkin, Mutko, all of these Putin (*criminal)’s colleagues working in St. Petersburg today are key officials or heads of the largest state-owned companies. This fact, along with the “rapid” growth of a non-Russian company, gives reason to think about the connection between Renaissance and the “first man” of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). Another confirmation may be that it was the Renaissance company that was entrusted with the construction of the Rossiya Tower (the tallest skyscraper in Moscow City) https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2399843, because the construction of an object with such an iconic name could and another company with Russian origin. In addition, Renaissance gets the most “delicious” contracts for the reconstruction and construction of Olympic facilities in Sochi and large infrastructure facilities throughout Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). Thanks to such a favorable regime in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism), today the company is one of the 100 largest contractors in the world.

In April 2011, a contract agreement was concluded between the companies DP “Gran Plaza” and LLC “Renaissance Engineering and Construction”, according to which Renaissance undertook the obligation to reconstruct the building into a hotel with the installation of attic, attic and technical floors, restoration of the facade, construction of an underground parking and a new 5-story extension in the courtyard space of the building on Proriznaya 24/39. The total cost of work under the Agreement was about $50 million.

It would seem that everything is fine: the investor attracts money, invests it in Ukrainian real estate, creates jobs in Ukraine, but not everything is so simple…

ISTIL’s plans to launch a hotel in 2013 failed to come true – to this day, the building on the corner of Proriznaya and Vladimirskaya is surrounded by a construction fence.

The question arises: how did the investor and owner commit such negligence: a loan was received from a foreign bank, interest is accrued, money is invested, but the business project does not generate income. Where is the EBRD looking?

The Unified State Register of Court Decisions gives us many answers. Thus, it becomes clear that an economic dispute arose between Istil, represented by the Grand Plaza DP and Renaissance Construction, represented by Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC in 2013.

Renaissance Engineering and Contracting LLC filed a lawsuit to recover 22 million hryvnia of debt for work performed and to terminate the contract. DP “Grand Plaza” filed a counterclaim to recover 120 million hryvnias of damages from Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC, for which Renaissance’s claims were increased to 140 million hryvnias.

As it turned out, Renaissance’s obligations to carry out contract work were secured by guarantees from foreign banks in the amount of about 8 million US dollars. And the main desire of the Renaissance company was to prevent the write-off of these guarantees in favor of the Grand Plaza subsidiary. Such a ban was introduced by a ruling of the Kyiv Economic Court, but was overturned by a decision of the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeal. This allowed the Grand Plaza subsidiary to receive about $5 million under these guarantees.

Subsequently, after a year of litigation, the parties suddenly agreed, and the Economic Court of Kyiv on May 19, 2014 approved their Settlement Agreement. As a result, Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC (general contractor) received only 6 million hryvnia, while the stated claims amounted to about 140 million hryvnia.

Well, we agreed and okay, but…

Firstly, Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC in the settlement agreement acknowledged the write-off of about 5 million dollars of guarantees in favor of the Grand Plaza subsidiary, which amounted to about 40 million hryvnia. That is, the general contractor did not receive 6 million hryvnia as a result, but paid more than 30 million hryvnia to the customer. This fact already raises questions.

Secondly, the general contractor recognized the Customer’s right to write off another $3 million from the Austrian bank Unicredit. History is silent about whether the money was written off in favor of the Grand Plaza subsidiary, but again, questions arise about such generosity of the Renaissance company.

Is it really possible that such a large and famous contractor performed the work so poorly that he paid more than he received under the contract? Or is there a clever “scam” going on?

As a hint to answer the question, we will collect data from another state register – the Unified State Register of Legal Entities and Individual Entrepreneurs.

Before the court decision to approve the settlement agreement, the party in the case and the reconstruction contractor were called Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC (code 37318836), and after the conclusion of the settlement agreement – Engineering and Construction LLC. Is this a reluctance to work more on the Ukrainian market or simply the withdrawal of a “prosperous” brand from an obviously “dirty” and scandalous situation?

But then it’s even more interesting, the company changed not only its name, but also its founder: a certain Iqbal Khurram became him. As it turns out, a man named Iqbal Khurram is the head of the sales department of the Istil group.

That is, after the conclusion of a settlement agreement between the Grand Plaza State Enterprise and Renaissance Engineering and Construction LLC, the latter company became the property of the Istil group. Again, why did the construction giant abandon its subsidiary?

But here, too, there is a strange thing: Renaissance Construction LLC (code 32254160), headed by a certain Burak Bektash, remains in Ukraine. On the phone number listed in the State Register, they answer that they know nothing about such a company.

What is actually happening at the construction site on Prorizna Street and around it can only be answered by law enforcement agencies, but for some reason they do not notice that millions of hryvnias have passed by the Ukrainian budget.

Civil activists have already become interested in this situation and are actively trying to attract the attention of not only the public, but also the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Fiscal Service.

The article came to the section SEND A SKELETON

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