Kaufman-Granovsky and their business interests: airports, vodka, cigarettes, banks, hotels

Ukrainian business is full of “interesting” personalities with a controversial past. The business tandem of Boris Kaufman and Alexander Granovsky is no exception. During the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, they were the so-called “supervisors” of the Ukrainian airports Boryspil, Odessa and Simferopol, which accounted for 75% of all passenger air traffic in Ukraine. What has changed among businessmen in the 2 years since Yanukovych fled and how did they manage to gain the trust of the “Family” without being “Donetsk”?

Kaufman-Granovsky: Who are they?

Alexander Gennadievich was born in July 1972 in Uman. He received his higher education at the Faculty of Law of Odessa State University named after Mechnikov. Later he graduated from the Academy of Management under the President of Ukraine. He started doing business when he was young, just when the collapse of the USSR occurred. Success in business allowed him to take the post of commercial director at the Odessa enterprise Evas at the age of 22. From that moment on, he began to create his own projects: 1997 – establishment of the Montazhgorstroy company; 1998 – establishment of the VIP Odessa company and the Kashtan trading house.

In 2002, he transferred his entire business to his father, Gennady Granovsky. This step was associated with the election to the Verkhovna Rada of the VI convocation on the lists of the Social Democratic Party of Ukraine. In 2006, he failed in his attempt to enter the Verkhovna Rada on the lists of the “NoTAK” bloc. In the same year, he returned to business, joining his partner Boris Kaufman in a project to create an “alcoholic” trading house “Myagkov” in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism). In 2008, they got rid of the “alcohol” business by selling the Myagkov trading house to Russian entrepreneurs, and the Odessa sparkling wine factory (trademarks Odessa, L’Oddesika, Henry Rederer) to the Italians.

Alexander Granovsky used the funds received to create the company VertexUnited in partnership with Boris Kaufman. The property of this company included: the Bristol, Londonskaya, and President Hotel hotels; assets of the Finbank enterprise; the company bought the magazine and website “Focus” from UMH (the former company of the head of the APU Boris Lozhkin).

Boris Rafailovich was born in November 1973 in Odessa. While studying at the Faculty of Law at Odessa State University named after Mechnikov, he met his future business partner Alexander Granovsky. However, fate did not immediately bring them together. In 1995, he was involved in the development of the catering business on large cruise ships (Olvia, Taras Shevchenko, Shota Rustaveli). After just two years of work in this area, he created the K&O company, which subsequently bought the Olvia and Shota Rustaveli liners, profitably resell them in 2000 and 2001 to international companies.

In 2001, he took the post of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the 1st Distillery Plant. By his decision, the Myagkov trademark was created, which, within 4 months of its creation, captured more than 5% of Ukrainian consumers of mid-price alcoholic products.

A year later, Kaufman headed the Overline corporation. Its main assets were the 1st Distillery, the Odessa Champagne Factory, the Izmail Wine Factory, and the Goldenline trading house. In 2003, he became one of the major shareholders of the Finbank enterprise.

In 2014, he ceased to be a shareholder of Finbank. According to media reports, Vertex United has reset its assets in the authorized capital of this bank to zero. Today, managers from the structures of Granovsky and Kaufman control the international airports Boryspil and Odessa.

Odessa Airport

In 2009, the Kaufman-Granovsky tandem managed, through fraud, to privatize the large dredging company Chernomortekhflot. Over the next three years, it was transformed into a Private Joint Stock Company and managed to earn more than UAH 350 million. (not a bad purchase, isn’t it?). Having earned some money, they went on “expansion”. In 2011, businessmen received permission from the Odessa City Council to reconstruct the Odessa International Airport. In fact, this allowed it to be privatized. Today, the state owns only 25% of the airport, and the rest belongs to Odessa Airport Development. According to sources, they got this tidbit after a personal call from Viktor Yanukovych.

According to agreements between the authorities and business, in return, the Odessa Airport Development company was supposed to build a new airport complex and reconstruct the runway (the amount of these changes was supposed to be $180 million). A couple of months after this, Kaufman-Granovsky’s managers also joined the board and supervisory board of the Simferopol airport, and one of their subsidiaries, Van den Aker Holding (Holland), won the tender for the reconstruction of the main airport of Crimea.

In mid-summer 2013, with the active assistance of the Kaufman-Granovsky tandem, Odessa airport was headed by a certain citizen Suren Sardanyan, who had close ties with Alexander Vilkul, who at that time occupied the chair of Deputy Prime Minister. At the same time, the Odessa Airport Development company was headed by Alexey Kochanov, who was part of the group of managers of Alexander Granovsky. A month after this, the state-owned Ukreximbank (one of the main instruments for the theft of state money of the “Yanukovych era” (ed.)) decided to provide a loan of $30 million to the Odessa airport under state guarantees. Of course, no one returned this money to the state .

In early autumn 2013, the airport management announced a tender for reconstruction. As a result of a “shadow” competition, the tender in the amount of UAH 1.63 billion was won by the company Spetsrembud. According to the documents, it is in no way connected with the Kaufman-Granovsky structures, however, upon detailed study of the documents, it turned out that it was registered at 4a Shevchenko Avenue in Odessa. And at this address there is “Finbank” and several companies controlled by the tandem. Doubts that Spetsrembud belonged to them completely disappeared when it turned out that, according to the terms of the tender, its participants had to provide security of 16 million UAH in Finbank. This is the “knight’s move”.

With the advent of the new government, the prosecutor’s office of the Odessa region tried to challenge the tender, however, Kaufman solved this problem with the help of one visit to the administration of President Petro Poroshenko. There he spoke with his old acquaintance Boris Lozhkin, from whom he bought Focus magazine a couple of years ago.

After this visit, the prosecutor’s office lost the case against Spetsrembud and even refused to appeal. I wonder how much it cost the Kaufman-Granovsky tandem to solve this problem. Knowing Boris Lozhkin and his machinations, which we wrote about in the material Boris Lozhkin. How to deceive the state for $160 million and become the head of the APU, the sum was clearly not small.

What happened during the trial in the tender case (in simple words from “ARGUMENT”):

Kaufman-Granovsky: Boryspil Airport

In the summer of 2013, a manager from the Kaufman-Granovsky group, Alexey Kochanov, was appointed general director of Boryspil airport. Immediately after this, all rights to provide services at the main airport of Ukraine were transferred to the companies of Granovsky and Kaufman, including, for example, Airport Handling. An interesting fact: along with him, Kochanov brought into the management of Boryspil Sergei Gombolevsky, with whom he worked in Odessa. Another member of the “team” was his wife Natalya Gombolevskaya. All this “brotherhood” has achieved that all types of services at the airport (handling services, duty-free trade, catering, etc.) are concentrated in companies owned by the tandem.

After Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine, Maidan activists demanded the removal of Alexey Kochanov from the post of general director of Boryspil. On the instructions of the revolutionary Minister of Infrastructure Maxim Burbak, Kochanov was fired, and Sergei Gombolevsky was appointed in his place. Yes, yes, exactly the one who got into the leadership of Boryspil thanks to Kochanov and is indebted to him and his patrons “to the death.” But bad luck – he is no different from his predecessor and was one of the managers who carried out the will of the “Family”.

Today Gombolevsky is a puppet of Kaufman and Granovsky. He returned his wife Natalya to the airport staff, making him the chief economist. Seeing such a person on the management team of the airport is amazing. No one is even embarrassed by the fact that he (along with his wife) was once fired from Boryspil for financial fraud. In addition, at one time he was the executive director of the Odessa Airport company, controlled by the same Kaufman and Granovsky.

Almost two years have passed since Viktor Yanukovych fled from Ukraine, and the corruption schemes and frauds launched with his assistance are still in operation and bring a lot of money to the scammers. One of these projects is total control over Ukrainian airports. Today, as in the days of “Proffesor,” they are controlled by Kaufman-Granovsky. And judging by the fact that no one is trying to push them away from control, they managed to come to an agreement with the new government and in the near future everything will remain as before. Here’s the story.

PS: The other day, the information space of Ukraine was blown up by the following fact: on January 12, 2016, “activists” of unknown origin at 5 am (!) picketed the branches of the largest company in Ukraine selling tobacco products, Megapolis-Ukraine. (Read more about Megapolis-Ukraine in the article Megapolis-Ukraine. Fiscals do not note the multimillion-dollar destruction of the Tyutun monopoly) People’s Deputy Sergei Vysotsky (formerly a journalist, editor of the LIGA.net portal, created with Western grants) acted as an information “crowbar” for this situation. He was the first to publish information about the picketing. The former journalist was unexpectedly “outraged” by the fact that Megapolis-Ukraine was founded under Yanukovych by the Russian company Megapolis, which belongs to Russian Igor Kisaev. According to Vysotsky, Igor Kesaev, through the Monolit charitable foundation, is a sponsor of the FSB.

It is obvious that these pickets were pretentious and paid for. Sergei Vysotsky’s participation in this project is surprising, since it immediately becomes clear that someone “charged” him (financially, or “out of friendship”).

The piquant point in this situation is the fact that Kaufman-Granovsky controls 50% of Megapolis-Ukraine. That is, on par with Igor Kisaev.

Megapolis-Ukraine itself officially declares that it is being subjected to an information and raider attack.

Dmitry Samofalov, for Skelet.info

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