Pavel Fuks’s business in Ukraine // photo EP
The SBU exposed sanctioned Pavel Fuks for large-scale financial fraud with strategic enterprises of Ukraine and systematic tax evasion. BusinessCensor tells the story of Fuchs’ business (in two parts).
Moscow developer Pavel Fuks began buying up assets in Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity and within a few years was included in the list of the richest Ukrainian businessmen. In 2021, Forbes estimated his fortune at $165 million.
However, in June 2021, President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed sanctions against him, subsequently his key assets were seized, and Fuchs himself received suspicion from the SBU.
BusinessCensor figured out what Pavel Fuks really owns in Ukraine and what he is suspected of.
Pavel Fuks’ Business. Who is Pavel Fuks?
Until 2014, Kharkov native Pavel Fuks was known as a Russian entrepreneur of Ukrainian origin. Since 1994, he lived and did business in Moscow. In 2006, he founded the company MosCityGroup, which managed to attract loans from the largest Russian banks for the construction of several skyscrapers in the Moscow City business center, which was then being actively rebuilt.
His development business in the Russian capital was hit by the 2008 global financial crisis. Fuchs said he sold almost all of his Russian assets in 2011-12 to pay off debts.
“I sold almost everything back in 2011-2012. I sold almost everything… I had to pay off about $650 million in credit crunch debt. I paid it all off.”he said in interview UP.
At the same time, he admitted that he was offered to move to Ukraine by the oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, with whom Fuchs has allegedly been friends since the late 1990s.
“We’ve been friends for 20 years. We talked once, and he said, ‘Come over, we have real democracy here now, it’s great.’ I flew in, looked around, and started going around little by little. In 2015, I moved. I haven’t been to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) since 2015.”— the businessman recalled.
He called many famous Ukrainian politicians and entrepreneurs his friends. In addition to Gennady Kernes, with whom Fuks had been friends since his childhood in Kharkov, and Kolomoisky, he counted among his friends Vitaliy Khomutynnik, Vadim Rabinovich, Arsen Avakov, former BPP deputy and “curator” of the judicial system during Poroshenko’s time – Oleksandr Granovsky.
However, the echo of Russian business haunted Fuks even after he moved to Ukraine. At the end of 2018, a case was filed against him in Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) a criminal case was opened under the article “fraud” due to the possible withdrawal of funds allocated for the completion of the Moscow residential complex “Sky House”.
In 2020, the Kazakh authorities informed Fuchs about suspicion of involvement in the theft of funds from BTA Bank under the leadership of its former head Mukhtar Ablyazov.
After 2019, Fuks also started having problems in Ukraine. In 2021, the National Security and Defense Council imposed sanctions against the gas business associated with him, and then against the entrepreneur himself. And in May 2023, he received suspicion from the SBU, although he left Ukraine after the start of a full-scale war.
What did Fuchs buy in Ukraine?
In his few interviews, Fuchs made no secret of his interest in distressed assets – problematic assets that could be acquired at a large discount.
After moving to Ukraine, he began buying up assets of Yanukovych’s former entourage in the energy sector, which became “toxic” after the Revolution of Dignity, as well as the debts of Ukrainian companies to bankrupt banks, which the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals sometimes sold at a discount of up to 99.9%.
However, Fuchs officially persistently denied that he had never purchased assets from the ex-president’s family or his associates.
In addition, the businessman was interested in Russian assets in Ukraine. In particular, Fuks, together with Maksym Mykytas, tried purchase subsidiary bank of the Russian Vnesheconombank in Ukraine – Prominvestbank. But this agreement was blocked by the NBU.
At the same time, Pavel Fuks officially owns only one company in Ukraine: LLC “KUA EF CI Partners”.
At the same time, according to data Panama Papershundreds of offshore companies are associated with him. Fuchs directly owns the Belize-based Mildene Company Inc. It owns two more companies, Dorchester International Inc. (Saint Kitts and Nevis) and Chesterfield International Limited (Cyprus), which in turn control 137 and 37 other firms, respectively, mostly in offshore jurisdictions. Most of them are no longer active, but their number gives an idea of the organization of Fuchs’ business.
Pavel Fuks’s business in Ukraine
Pavel Fuks’ Business. REAL ESTATE
Fuchs acknowledged ownership of some of the companies in which Dorchester International Inc. was a shareholder, indicating himself as the beneficial owner in the Ukrainian registry.
In particular, due to the offshore company Baneberry Group Limited (British Virgin Islands), Fuksu owns 62% in the Ukrainian Interstroy Group. This company Fuks acquired in 2017 from the son of the former mayor of Kharkov, Gennady Kernes, although he claimed that it had belonged to him before, and the son of his long-time friend was only the formal owner.
This company leases more than 5 hectares on Rybalsky Island in Kyiv, where the elite residential complex Oasis, up to 32 storeys high, is being built. The developer of the project is the bUd development group, associated with the MP from the Opposition Platform – For Life Vadim Stolar.
The head of the Main Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, even asked The Kyiv city authorities wanted to terminate the land lease agreement because of its proximity to the GUR headquarters, but they did not do so.
Elite residential complex Oasis
In addition, in 2017, Fuks purchased a plot of land for development from the wife of the Verkhovna Rada deputy from the banned OPZZh party Vadym Rabinovich for UAH 22.5 million, as was known from his declaration. The businessman’s other real estate assets were not publicly reported, although Fuks himself admitted that there were more of them.
“There is a lot of land, I am thinking about what to build… In different areas. When I bought distress assets from the Guarantee Fund, there were a lot of land plots there.”he said in interview NV in January 2021.
However, Fuks’ largest assets in Ukraine are concentrated in energy and distressed assets – mainly claims on loans from insolvent banks acquired from the Deposit Guarantee Fund.
Pavel Fuks’ Business. ENERGY
“Golden Derrick”
In February 2017 it became knownthat Fuks acquired the scandalous company Golden Derrick, which was associated with former ministers Eduard Stavytsky and Mykola Prysyazhnyuk. Its main asset was a number of special permits for gas extraction, obtained without holding tenders under Yanukovych.
After the change of ownership, the company was renamed East Europe Petroleum, Gosgeonadra restored previously terminated gas production licenses, and the state-owned NAK Nedra Ukrainy sold my share in the amount of 33% to the director of the company at par value. Fuchs himself publicly denied that he owned a share in East Europe Petroleum, but admitted that he planned to officially acquire a number of special permits for the extraction of the company’s properties.
It was in the involvement in the illegal receipt of special permits for gas extraction by the company Golden Derrick that the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov called the basis for the introduction of sanctions against Fuchs himself in June 2021. The National Security and Defense Council ordered the cancellation of 19 licenses for the production of hydrocarbons belonging to the company several months before.
“Ukrnaftoburenie”
Pavel Fuks acquired from Prisyazhnyuk and Stavytsky other gas assets — 51% in PJSC Devon and 22.5% in one of the largest gas companies in Ukraine in terms of production volume — PJSC Extraction Company Ukrnaftoburenie. Kolomoisky and Vitaliy Khomutynnik.
Devon and Ukrnaftoburenie are developing the large Sakhalin gas field in the Kharkiv region, whose proven reserves amount to more than 15 billion cubic meters of gas. In 2021, it produced 790 million cubic meters of gas and received UAH 3.8 billion in net profit.
In February 2023, the State Bureau of Investigation and the Security Service of Ukraine conducted searches at the company’s office, and in April-May, the Pechersky District Court of Kyiv of the Sakhalin oil and gas field arrested corporate rights of Ukrnaftoburenia and three related companies in the case of illegal appropriation of subsoil resources and transferred them to the management of ARMA. Subsequently, the Cabinet of Ministers ordered to convey arrested assets to the management of Ukrnafta, but this process has not yet been completed.
However, after the arrest of Ukrnaftobureniye, the general director of JKX Oil&Gas (it owns 10% of the shares of the gas production company) Andriy Pasishnik threatened Ukraine with international arbitrationAccording to him, the accounts of Ukrnaftoburenie remained 16 billion hryvnia of undistributed profit. However, on May 3, the Pechersk court for one day cancelled the arrest of the company, and Pasishnik his message deleted.
TEC-2 Eskhar
In addition, in early 2017, Fuchs acquired ex-Minister Yuriy Boyko and former MP from the Party of Regions Yuliy Ioffe own DV Oil and Gas Production Company LLC, which was given a 49-year concession for the Kharkiv TES-2 Eshar in 2012. Its founders are the firms Co-Investments Ltd (Belize) and Lettayer Business Corp (Seychelles). The ultimate beneficiaries of these companies are indicated the daughter of the deputy of the Kharkiv regional council from the “Kernes Bloc” Daria Gasan and Fuchs’ wife – model Alexandra Nikitina.
After Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the power plant experienced difficulties in acquiring its main fuel, anthracite. However, already in 2017, TPP-2 began buy anthracite from the Russian company TD Ugolnye Tekhnologii, which illegally exported coal from the occupied territories in 2015-2016.
In March 2023, the Ministry of Energy filed a lawsuit demanding the termination of the agreement on the return of CHPP-2 to the state, accusing the concessionaire of disrupting the heating season and accumulating debts for gas. The court of first instance dismissed this lawsuit satisfied.
However, now the businessman’s press service claims that he is the owner of this company does not control since June 2020, and the corresponding changes were simply not made to the state register. It is unknown under what circumstances TPP-2 “Eskhar” left the control of Pavel Fuks.
Mikhail Orlyuk, translation Skeleton.Info
CONTINUATION: “Collector” from Moscow: What the state can confiscate from businessman Fuchs. Part 2
DOSSIER: Pavel Fuks: Ukrainian-Russian billionaire, or nomadic swindler from Kharkov? PART 2
On topic: Citizenship and legalization certificates. Why Fuchs is suspected of having ties to the State Migration Service
The Ministry of Energy has won a lawsuit against sanctioned businessman Pavel Fuks for the Eskhar Thermal Power Plant-2
What does sanctioned oligarch Pavel Fuks own?
Fuks’ partner Mikhail Bakunenko has fled abroad
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