Denis Gorbunenko: “Shadow of Firtash”
Who brought Rodovid Bank to bankruptcy, tells Argument.
One of the most problematic financial institutions in Ukraine officially ceased to exist this year – February 13, 2023 By decision of the executive directorate of the Deposit Guarantee Fund for individuals, the liquidation balance sheet and the report on the implementation of the liquidation procedure of Rodovid Bank were approved. “In accordance with the instructions h. 3 Article. 53 of the Law of Ukraine “On the system of guaranteeing deposits of individuals” from the moment the liquidation balance sheet is approved, the liquidation procedure of the bank is considered completed. At the same time, we inform you that according to Art. Claims of creditors to the bank, which were not satisfied as a result of the liquidation procedure and the sale of property (assets) of the bank as of the date of the liquidation balance sheet, are considered repaid”, — noted in the FGVFL.
The Fund does not talk about what amounts are in question. Officials only reported that at the time Rodovid Bank JSC was declared insolvent (this happened in February 2016), the bank was rehabilitated and “due to the specifics of its activities, it did not raise funds for deposits from citizens, therefore, the Fund did not make payments of guaranteed reimbursement amounts in this bank “. According to independent estimates, the total damage to the state from the activities of Rodovid Bank amounted to about 10 billion hryvnia. And the question of who is to blame for the fact that this bank went down so rapidly still remains without a clear answer.
In order to understand how Rodovid Bank reached such a final, we need to remember what happened to it in 2008-2009. At that time, this bank was associated with the Ukrainian sportsman Serhiy Bubka, who has served as its president since 2004. But the real leaders and owners of the bank turned out to be completely different people. They were top managers of Rodovid Bank Denis Gorbunenko, Sergey Dyadechko and Dmitry Egorenko. The leader of this group of owners was Gorbunenko, who served as chairman of the board of Rodovid from July 2, 2004 to January 13, 2009 (Egorenko was the first deputy chairman of the board, Dyadechko was the bank’s vice president). This was clearly demonstrated by the ownership structure of the majority shareholder of Rodovid Bank OOO RB Capital-Group, which owned 77% of the bank’s shares. In RB Capital-Group LLC, Bubka owned only 5%, and 95% belonged to the Donetsk company Ukrbiznesresurs. In its capital, 40% belonged to Gorbunenko, 34% to Yegorenko, and 26% to Dyadechko.
Due to the deterioration of the liquidity and solvency of the Pedigree Bank and the decrease in the regulatory capital, the National Bank was forced to introduce temporary administration into it from March 16, 2009. The main reasons that led to such a step, the regulator named the decrease in the volume of highly liquid assets, violation of the economic standards of the NBU and the emergence of a file of non-payments. According to Rodovid Bank, its total liabilities at the beginning of 2009 amounted to UAH 11.86 billion, including UAH 6.3 billion in customer funds and UAH 5 billion in bank funds. The total volume of loans issued and debts on them reached the level of UAH 9.9 billion.
The fact that the real cause of the collapse was not the global crisis, but the “scheme” work of the Genealogical Bank, said in August 2009 the then Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko. According to him, back in November 2007, Rodovid Bank and Baski Plus 2004 LLC signed a loan agreement, according to which Bank LLC opened a credit line for a total of UAH 250 million. As a security for the fulfillment of obligations under this agreement, the LLC transferred to the bank a land plot with a total area of 113 hectares, which is located in Kyiv on the street. Ozernaya. After that, according to Lutsenko, the bank entered into loan agreements with another 15 companies for a total of UAH 1.75 billion, and the collateral for all these loans was the same land plot that appeared in the agreement with Baski Plus 2004 LLC.
“In the future, in order to receive refinancing in the amount of UAH 1.26 billion, knowing for sure that this land plot has repeatedly been pledged for colossal loans, the management of Rodovid Bank concludes a loan agreement with the National Bank, to ensure which the same legendary plot is again transferred“, said the then minister. In addition, Lutsenko stressed that in order to default on loans, all companies that received loans from Rodovid Bank for a total of UAH 2 billion declared bankruptcy without including Rodovid Bank in the list of their creditors. Moreover, according to him, during the inspections it was found that all these firms were registered under nominees who did not know anything about their activities, and even more so about receiving such colossal funds.
This story has become just one of many scandalous cases discovered in Rodovid and occurred during the leadership of Denis Gorbunenko. Subsequently, it became known that Baski Plus 2004 LLC is controlled by the oligarch Dmitry Firtash, and in general, up to 40% of Rodovid’s corporate loan portfolio accounted for the company in its orbit. How the bank’s management was dependent on Firtash can be understood by the example of the scam with the Ukrgas-energo company. In February 2008, this structure of Firtash assigned about half a billion hryvnias at 9% per annum to a deposit in Rodovid Bank, and on March 13, 2009 (that is, three days before the introduction of a temporary administration) signed an additional agreement with the bank (on behalf of Denis’s partner Gorbunenko Egorenko), for which the interest rate was increased to a fantastic 48% per annum.
This deal cost the bank a loss of more than UAH 280 million, which Ukrgas-Energo managed to get a year later. By the way, this is why Yegorenko became a defendant in the criminal case and is still on the wanted list. As for Denis Gorbunenko, he had a huge impact on Rodovid Bank after the introduction of an interim administration into it. Gorbunenko managed to become an adviser to the interim administrator Sergei Shcherbina and,about his expression, began to work actively with the distressed assets of Rodovid Bank. And the father of Denis Gorbunenko, Vladimir Gorbunenko, became the vice-president of the bank. What happened after that is well known – the state pumped up the bank with billions of hryvnias, which were successfully washed out of it. And Shcherbina was already detained by the SBU in 2010 for embezzlement of public funds. As for Gorbunenko, he left Ukraine and settled in London, where for many years works for Firtash, being his confidant. And due to some “strange coincidence” questions to him about fraud in Rodovid Bank no longer arose. Although the problems created by him and his team, the successors of the bank are still unraveling. For example, the bankruptcy of Ukrgaz-energo is still ongoing, where only in March of this year Rodovid Bank withdrew from the list of creditors (it was replaced by Investohills). And the prospect of repaying the debt, equal to almost 300 million hryvnias, is frankly vague in this case.
Vasily Petrenko, translation Skeleton.Info
DOSSIER: Sergey Dyadechko: who was behind the Rodovid Bank scams? PART 2