Farewell stream of Unistream Bank
Have the owners of Unistream bank Grigory Zakaryan and Georgy Piskov realized that the future of the financial institution is in ruins and are they trying to drain the toxic asset?
Bank “Unistream” is looking for a buyer against the background of a whole bunch of complaints from customers and the refusal of its former partners to cooperate. It is reported by “Kommersant”.
The bank once again had problems with the transfer of consumer funds to neighboring countries (Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc.). In particular, the Belarusian Paritet Bank and Dabrabyt, the Uzbek Ipak Uyli, the Moldovan Energbank, Moldindconbank, Maib, the Kazakh Freedom Finance Bank and Nurbank, in particular, stopped cooperation with Unistream, a correspondent reports. The Moscow Post.
At the same time, representatives of Unistream refute the information about problems with transfers, and that they are going to sell the asset. Although the information field has already leaked information that the owners allegedly value the bank at about $ 100 million. By the way, according to expert estimates, taking into account the current situation, a financial institution can be valued at a maximum of 500 million rubles, Kommersant wrote.
Sinking ship
Funny detail. According to journalists, there were a lot of negative reviews on the banki.ru website. At the moment, the page with information about Unistream on it simply gives an error.
As for the website of banking analysts analizbankov.ru, in almost all indicators over the past month the bank has been seriously sagging. And the trend is negative. Its liquidity has fallen by as much as 42% in just a month since the beginning of the year!
Photo: https://analyzbankov.ru
With security in the bank, too, not everything is going smoothly. The Moscow Post published a whole collection of stories about how scammers operated there.
Permanent and unsinkable (or slowly sinking?)
An asset that has already become almost toxic has been run by two scandalous entrepreneurs for many years – these are Gagik Zakaryan and Georgy Piskov. They own Unistream in equal shares through the offshore company Utransfers Gigi Limited. Of particular interest is the identity of the former. Until now, to stay afloat, despite a lot of scandals, according to the Vek publication, he can be helped by the goodwill of the permanent president of the Association of Russian Banks (ADB) Garegin Tosunyan.
Photo: https://analizbankov.ru/img/oldholdfiles/RB3467_20180813.pdf
Before taking this high post, the latter worked as a banker for many years. True, his experience cannot be called successful – the Technobank he created did not work even for 10 years, his license was revoked, being suspected of financial fraud. And “Unistream Bank” may well be the product of Mr. Tosunyan.
By the way, the history of Unistream began with Uniastrum Bank (partially owned by Zakarian and Piskov), which was liquidated in 2017 after it was bought by Artem Avetisyan (considered close to the head of Sberbank German Gref) and subsequently merged with Vostochny Bank. Unistream Bank was spun off from the capital of Uniastrum in 2006, and the shares there went to Zakarian, Piskov and the British fund Aurora Russia Limited.
Abyss of scandals
It is worth stopping here in more detail. There are a lot of seemingly incredible rumors and no less shocking facts around Unistream.
For example, it is a fact that in the autumn of 2008 the parent Uniastrum was sold to the Bank of Cyprus at a price approximately twice the market price. Even the President of Cyprus was outraged and, on his orders, an investigation into the incident was organized. A loud scandal broke out, a variety of officials cited a huge amount of data indicating the unscrupulousness of the deal. The main ideologist of the transaction was Andreas Iliadis, who left the chairman of the board of the Cypriot bank shortly after it was completed. As a result, the case was successfully hushed up. And the bank later went to Avetisyan.
Is it possible that Zakarian and Piskov are hoping to do something similar already with Unistream? True, it is not very clear which of the foreign partners in a situation of unenviable financial situation and sanctions pressure can merge an asset, and Unistream is unlikely to be of interest to anyone on the domestic market. Even the head of Norilsk Nickel, Vladimir Potanin, who has recently been very greedy for banking assets, does not seem to need him.
Now for the rumors. Rumor has it that the British intelligence service MI6, which is engaged in the disposal of secret documents in Russia, has a stake in the capital of one of the bank’s structures. It turns out that people who enter the offices of Russian officials from the financial sector can be directly connected with foreign intelligence services? A true detective story…
Let’s get personal
As for Mr. Zakarian, 11 firms were registered in his name. Among them is the media asset of Noah’s Ark Media LLC, a share in which also belongs to the scandalous Ruben Grigoryan (one of the leaders in the construction of the Armenian Church Complex in Moscow, its customer-designer, the head of the Rutsog-Invest company, which is reproached for its terrible attitude towards employees) , which has a good political weight in the capital.
Together with Piskov, he also owns Protobase Laboratories, which develops software, which in a strange way received a state contract for 900 thousand rubles from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Are Zakarian and Piskov sitting on two chairs?
Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
Zakarian’s firm also has a state contract in the consulting ANO “NCFG”. This time, Moscow State University did not spare more than 46 million rubles for the development, testing and replication of materials as part of co-execution in the formation of financial literacy among students through the organization of project activities and other interactive forms of education in the system of general and additional education. At the same time, if in 2020 the company had about 165 million in revenue, then in 2021 it dropped to zero. Where did the money go?
Photo: https://www.rusprofile.ru
Approximately the same situation in the Piskovskaya LLC “Integrated Communication Systems”. She earned more than 23 million rubles on government contracts and is now in the process of bankruptcy. Since 2020, its revenue has dropped from 20 million rubles to 3 thousand rubles.
Financial organizations were also registered with Zakarian – JSC Ipmp-Trust (engaged in investing in securities) and JSC Utrade.Ru (brokerage). The latter acted as a defendant in 11 cases, including non-fulfillment or improper fulfillment of obligations under bank account agreements, obligations in the course of settlements and the invalidation of major transactions, transactions with interest and the application of the consequences of the invalidity of transactions. As a result, it was liquidated by a court decision. Zakarian had fun with the money of Unistream clients?
It is also interesting that Zakarian was recently a member of the Pokrovskie Vorota homeowners association, which is located at Moscow, Kazarmenny pereulok, 3/6. According to Yandex Maps, this is a small pre-revolutionary building in the center of Moscow. Apartments here can cost fabulous money. So, where do Unistream clients’ funds flow?
Photo: https://yandex.ru/maps
Bells, bells and bells
But back to Unistream. The first calls for bank owners appeared several years ago. Even then, the bank already had problems with the implementation of foreign transfers. In 2019, the Central Bank introduced a restriction on foreign exchange transactions.
And in August 2018, employees of the Central Bank came to Unistream with a surprise check. And shortly before that, the chairman of the board of the bank, Kirill Palchun, was brought to administrative responsibility under the article “Failure to comply with the requirements of the legislation on combating the legalization (laundering) of proceeds from crime and the financing of terrorism,” banki.ru reported.
Despite the embarrassment that happened, Palchun worked at the bank for another two years, and only in 2020 did he still run from the sinking ship. Since even top managers who have worked in the institution for more than a decade are leaving the bank, the matter clearly smells of kerosene, as they say. By the way, bloggers from the YouTube investigation channel The Facts predicted a sad outcome back in 2018.
Source: https://www.youtube.com
As for the bank’s finances, back in 2011, according to analysts, Unistream had already drowned in debt so much that its share of demand liabilities was at the “unsatisfactory” level. And over time, the situation, which for some time was accompanied by fleeting upsurges, in fact only worsened.
The leaders of Unistream did not blame for anything: both competitors who allegedly sent letters to bank customers about the unreliability of the financial institution (though unreliable), and journalists who covered all the ugly stories of the bank. In 2018, Unistreamers even filed a complaint against our publication with the Federal Antimonopoly Service for violating antitrust laws! Very strange claims to the publication … For those who are interested, we covered this story in detail.
Summing up the above: we do not approve, but there is a feeling that assets were pumped out of the bank for a long time and systematically. But despite this and all the scandals, it was still possible to sell the asset if its owners had taken care of it before their partners began to refuse to cooperate. And now just getting rid of the asset will not work. And it is quite possible that soon you will have to answer again to the Central Bank and law enforcement agencies that have been eyeing Unistream for a long time. And even high patron will not help.
