A year ago, collection agreements were checked by the State Financial Inspectorate – it turned out that the companies had neither qualifications nor experience. “Kievvodokanal” then hid its documents from inspection, and the “collectors” themselves could not be found at all. Meanwhile, for the last five years, Kievvodokanal has been declaring only losses and not paying dividends to shareholders. In simple words, the Kyiv budget has not received a penny from the enterprise for a long time. In search of an answer to the traditional “who is to blame and what to do next,” we decided to shed light on the structure of ownership, management and property of Kievvodokanal.
Recently, law enforcement officers brought serious charges against Kievvodokanal: the company’s management allegedly embezzled 18 million in utility funds, transferring them to fictitious companies for fictitious collection services. The Ministry of Internal Affairs was not the first to have complaints about the transparency of the use of these funds.
A year ago, collection agreements were checked by the State Financial Inspectorate – it turned out that the companies had neither qualifications nor experience. “Kievvodokanal” then hid its documents from inspection, and the “collectors” themselves could not be found at all. Meanwhile, for the last five years, Kievvodokanal has been declaring only losses and not paying dividends to shareholders. In simple words, the Kyiv budget has not received a penny from the enterprise for a long time. In search of an answer to the traditional “who is to blame and what to do next,” we decided to shed light on the structure of ownership, management and property of Kievvodokanal. In the cohort of managers, numerous shadows of “frontrunners” appeared, or, as they also like to call them, “family people.” It became even more interesting when we found out what fate befell the assets of the water utility under their leadership.
Who to whom?
They say that the most difficult questions to answer are simple ones. For example: “Who owns Kievvodokanal?”
Let’s start with what lies on the surface, that is, with the official version. The majority of shares belong to the Department of Municipal Property of Kyiv. A smaller part goes to mysterious private traders. They did not enter there directly, but through a “layout” created in 2008 – the company “Kievenergoholding” (KEH). The city received about two-thirds of it, the rest was assigned to the Cypriot companies Densec Limited and Zarova Limited (later replaced by Artio Global Investors LTD). Their nominal owners are either the inaccessible Belize and Virgin Islands, or the Cypriot aborigines. In order not to get confused at the very beginning, we recommend taking a look at the diagram.
In Ukraine, it traditionally turns out that in similar stories, in fact, the company is run not by the majority owner, the state, but by a minority private owner. No matter how meager percentage he owned. The water utility has not changed its traditions either – it has always been assumed that it is managed by the one who owns the KEH offshores.
Businessmen Vasily Khmelnitsky were called the first owners of gold offshores (read more about him in the article Vasily Khmelnitsky: misplaced oligarch) and Andrey Ivanov. Later they got rid of this business, which they confirmed in response to our request: “Kiev Investment Group” (the conventional name of companies associated with Khmelnitsky and Ivanov. – Ed.) did have a 20% stake in KEH until 2010, but sold it in 2010–2011, Zarova “was never part of the KIG group,” and Densec “has not been connected in any way with business of entrepreneur Vasily Khmelnitsky.”
The new owner allegedly became the ex-son-in-law of Leonid Chernovetsky – Vyacheslav Suprunenko. “There was no pressure. “We sold Kievenergoholding because we felt uncomfortable working there, there was no control,” said Khmelnitsky.
Since New Region LLC, associated with Suprunenko, bought an additional 25% of shares from the city at the beginning of 2010, it seemed that the “Khmelnitsky era” should be followed by the “Suprunenko era.”
But then the 2010 presidential elections suddenly crept up and with them – Viktor Yanukovych. Already in the fall, the then metropolitan elite felt the changes in the country: Chernovetsky was replaced by Popov, Suprunenko was put on the wanted list, and the sale of a 25% stake in the city to him was canceled by the court.
The Kyiv City State Administration reports to the population about the return of control over KVK to Kyiv, including management. And here a turning point occurs – a new team enters the enterprise, the majority of which remain there to this day.
The first to be “developed” was the semi-private “Kievenergoholding”. It is difficult to say what arguments were used to convince KEH minority shareholders, but in October 2010, people associated with Sergei Lyovochkin, at that time the head of the presidential administration, came there.
Evgeniy Fomenko became the general director, and the supervisory board was headed by Yegor Rusin, both are Alexander Puzanov’s people. The latter was Popov’s deputy in the Kyiv City State Administration, and in addition, according to media reports, an old friend and lawyer of Sergei Lyovochkin. Well, and also – a classmate of his sister Yulia Lyovochkina and her adviser as a people’s deputy.
“Kievvodokanal” itself is headed by Popov’s man – the ex-head of “Poltavavodokanal” Valery Chenchevoy. But this appointment was called rather ritualistic, since more respected people appeared in the corporate structure – from the royal throne.
In April 2011, Yaroslav Bera joined the supervisory board of Kievvodokanal. This name first surfaced in journalistic investigations a year ago – because of documents found in Mezhyhirya after Yanukovych fled. Bera was the director of the Lior company of Dmitry Sidlyarenko, deputy director of the most famous family company Tantalite. In addition, he was known as an adviser to the chairman of the board and minority shareholder of Radical Bank, which at one time, together with another “family” financial institution, UkrbusinessBank, was involved in dubious contracts of Mezhigorsk companies worth more than UAH 1.6 billion. Now the main stake in the bank is being transferred to management, but Yaroslav Bera still remains deputy chairman of the supervisory board, holding a stake of almost 10%.
By the way, now, according to the “Bulletin of Public Procurement” and the court register, “Kievvodokanal” also has accounts in “Radical”.
By coincidence, the caretaker of communal property turned out to be a surprisingly successful businessman. Moreover, in the water supply and tender sector. He developed a business with the company SPR-Group, a tender champion, which during 2010–
2012 received contracts worth a billion hryvnia for the reconstruction of various sewerage and treatment facilities. In general, of the 12 projects listed on the SPR website, 10 were government contracts. So, according to our sources at customs, SPR-Group purchased equipment abroad, in particular from the Polish company Teria Energy Sp.zo.o. In 2011-2014 “SPR-Group” imported goods from it worth about
65 million euros. At the same time, Teria itself did not officially supply anything to anyone in Ukraine except SPR-Group and turned out to be not entirely Polish: it belongs to Yaroslav Bere and Yaroslav Girnyak, ex-adviser to the chairman of the board of Radical Bank.
Thus, few were surprised by the fact that soon SPR-Group began to win tenders from Kievvodokanal itself – through its subsidiary LLC Environment Ukraine. In 2012, without a tender (there were no more takers) she received a contract in the amount of UAH 2.92 million for the development of the Desnyansk water station project. It was planned to order similar services from the same company for the Dnieper station, but UAH 2.67 million fell through due to confusion with the procurement procedure.
However, Baroy is not alone. There are several other interesting people in the management of the water utility.
The first deputy general director for economics and finance and a member of the board of KVK is Donetsk resident Anna Tsyganok. She received her appointment a few months before Bera’s official entry, and previously worked as deputy director of the KP “Company “Water of Donbass”. However, her other previous work is more interesting. According to data from public profiles we found on the Internet, in 2004–2009. Tsyganok worked at the Energoprogress company. Maybe it’s a coincidence, maybe not – Ekaterina Grigorievna Kaplanets worked there, at least in 2009 and 2010. But in Kyiv, Ekaterina Kaplanets already held a position in the planning and economic department of Tantalit – her name is repeatedly mentioned in documents found by activists in the company’s old office on Voloshskaya. After digging through social networks, we also discovered that Ekaterina Kaplanets and Anna Tsyganok are among the circle of friends of Marina Litovchenko, the wife of the “family lawyer” Pavel Litovchenko.
Another deputy general director is Vita Strukova, responsible for regulatory policy and investments. Once upon a time, Strukova was called Valery Borisov’s man of the region – before, she actually headed the legal service of his concern “Kievpodzemdorstroy”. However, much more interesting were her connections with the new team. Around 2012, Strukova began to appear in the news as a member and honorary president of the newly formed MEOO “Aqua Dom”. According to the Ministry of Justice, among its founders are Donetsk resident Sergei Bilous, better known as the official co-owner of SPR-Group, and Alla Tarasevich, a board member of the Road of the Future foundation of Yanukovych’s common-law wife Lyubov Polezhay. In addition, Alla Tarasevich in 2011 for some time was the director of the company Hellios LTD LLC (this name should be remembered).
The first deputy head of the water utility is Vadim Storozhuk. There is not much information about him, at least since 2012 he has been known as an adviser, and for at least a year he has been the first deputy chairman of Kievvodokanal. Since 2012, Storozhuk has also been the commercial director of the Ukrainian Mechanical Engineering company. The co-owner of this company is Yulia Aleksandrovna Garan. A person with the same name in 2011–2012. was the director of the “Gellios LTD” we already mentioned above (we still advise you not to forget this company).
In March 2014, after Yanukovych fled to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism), the supervisory board of Kievvodokanal replaced the head of the enterprise, Chenchevoy, with Andrey Bilyk. To be fair, we note that this person is no stranger to the water utility: he previously worked here as Deputy General Director for Technical Issues and Prospective Development. But what is much more interesting is that Bilyk was also deputy director for technical issues at Environment Ukraine, a subsidiary of SPR-Group. By the way, at the tender in which Environment received several million in a row, Bilyk was part of the tender committee.
However, the matter is not only who runs the water utility, but also on what grounds. According to SMIDA, a good half of water utility officials have already completed their term of office a year ago.
Yaroslav Beru and Evgeniy Fomenko (both from Kyivenergoholding), as well as Andrey Gudz (from the city) were appointed to the supervisory board in 2011 for a period of three years. The same applies to the three members of the audit commission. In response to our request, the company explained that “according to the current legislation of Ukraine and the charter of the company, the supervisory board fulfills its duties until the election of a new composition of the supervisory board.” Although, according to legal logic, at the next meeting of shareholders in 2014, they should have all been fired first, and then either re-elected or new ones appointed.
And here we come to the second problem: the water utility has not held a general meeting of shareholders for a year and a half. It was supposed to take place last year in May, but it fell through. Officially – due to violation of the order of its conduct. At first, the supervisory board arranged the dates in such a way that it became impossible to warn shareholders 30 days before the meeting. Then the meeting was scheduled for July, but the supervisory board canceled it. With a unique explanation: “in connection with the implementation of the mobilization plan and the introduction at the objects of the society, in particular at the place of the meeting, of a regime of enhanced security and restrictions on access associated with the aggravation of the socio-political situation in the country.”
Thus, “Kyivvodokanal” today continues to be operated by a team of managers associated with the previous government. The team under which the water utility got rid of the list of property with unprecedented speed – and got rid of it in favor of, again, not strangers and not the last people. Several stories.
Withdrawal of property through a loan from Radical Bank
Several years ago, one of the smallest minority shareholders of Kievvodokanal (of those who had only a few shares) tried to appeal in court the privatization of part of the company’s property: some profitable assets were allegedly alienated illegally and at a reduced price. He appealed, as you might guess, unsuccessfully. The details of this story can be read in the Court Register, but we will tell it briefly, but with additional highlights.
So, it took less than a year to do everything. In August 2011, “Kievvodokanal” took out a loan in the amount of UAH 7.5 million from its almost native “Radical Bank”. The loan was only for 40 days and at a ridiculous 10%, but the agreement had serious security: three property complexes were pledged as collateral. The first is the “Dzherelo” medical and health complex in Pushcha-Voditsa (6800 sq. m., valued at UAH 4.43 million), the second is a complex of buildings of unknown purpose on the street. General Rodimtsev (278 sq. m., 3.7 million UAH), and the third was the Khvilya sanatorium-preventorium near the village. Zazimye, north of the capital (11,350 sq. m., 8.19 million UAH).
Next, a classic scheme is drawn up. So that no “successors” can roll back the operation. To achieve this, the bank secured not only a mortgage, but also a tripartite surety agreement. Tekhnokhimpostach private enterprise (owner – Belizean offshore company Briko LTD) assumed joint responsibility for the loan with Kyivvodokanal. The company pledged funds placed on deposit in the same bank as collateral.
Then everything goes like clockwork. Vodokanal does not fulfill its contractual obligations, the bank writes off money from Tekhnokhimpostach to repay the debt, and it receives the right to demand either money or a mortgage from the utilities. The water utility gave up the property without a fight – already in March 2012, ownership of “Dzherelo” and the buildings on Rodimtsev were officially registered in the name of “Beleans”. For some reason, the Khvilya sanatorium falls out of the scheme, but the water utility still loses two property complexes.
Of course, after getting acquainted with this business operation, I wanted to get to know its heroes. The following was discovered.
First. Tekhnokhimpostach was liquidated immediately after this story, and this was done through a company associated with the management of both the bank and the water utility. The company, which freely operated with millions and million-dollar property, went bankrupt due to a promissory note in the amount of … 205 thousand. In the summer of 2012, the Belizeans borrowed this amount from FC European Format LLC, which resold the promissory note to Trest-Torg LLC, which filed a lawsuit, which in 2013 liquidated Tekhnokhimpostach as bankrupt.
A nice nuance: the owners of the “European Format” until 2010 were Yaroslav Bera and Grigory Bob (in 2012-2013 a member of the supervisory board of “Radical Bank”), then the company was transferred to offshore from the Marshall Islands “Jetwer Alliance LTD”, but at the same time time, the company “Briarey” was registered next door to Barina and the ex-manager was appointed director “Briarea” by Sergei Liepu. Now all the companies involved in this story have been liquidated.
Second. Before bankruptcy, Tekhnokhimpostach resold the property of water workers to companies that can also hardly be called random.
“PushchaNasha”
Thus, the new owner of “Dzherel” in the fall of 2012, under a purchase and sale agreement, became the company that we asked you to remember above – “Gellios LTD”. An interesting detail from the property registry extract: on the same day as the purchase, a new mortgage was issued at Radical Bank – only this time to secure obligations
in the amount of 10 million UAH, which is more than twice as much as this complex was valued when issuing a loan to the water utility.
Here we need to explain what the water utility actually lost. The value of “Dzherel” is not in the Soviet building, boiler room and greenhouse, which were estimated at 4 million UAH. Its value is 2.7 hectares near the forest in Pushcha-Voditsa. Land there is now being sold for $10,000 per hundred square meters, that is, the “Dzherela” plot could cost about $2.7 million. Now it is under long-term lease (25 years)
from “Gellios” as the owner of the property complex. The company registered the land in front of the Maidan itself – the corresponding decision was made by the City Council at the end of October 2013. What happened next cannot be called anything other than “karma”: in the summer of 2014, migrants from Donbass settled in “Dzherel” (representatives of “Helios LTD” then they called it raiding), and in the fall there were people who wanted to allegedly open a rehabilitation center for military personnel from the ATO in the boarding house.
A few months ago, we managed to contact one of Hellios’ lawyers, Alexander Priymak (the same person to whom “Tantalit” is now nominally rewritten, which adds additional charm to this story). He said that upon the seizure of the sanatorium complex, proceedings have been opened for “arbitrariness, car theft, forgery of documents and seals of the enterprise, theft of property” and that all this is being investigated by the Obolon district police department, and “Gellios LTD” is trying to return the situation to the legal field.
However, despite all the military resettlement vicissitudes, let us remind you: the property and land of “Dzherel” remain with “Helios”.
“GoloseevNash”
No less interesting was the history of the property complex at General Rodimtsev, 4.
According to the list of property that the State Property Fund issued to the water utility in 2003, at this address there used to be an enterprise for the operation of sewer networks – an industrial building, a warehouse and workshops. We tried to find out what kind of complex it was and whether the current owner provides any services to the water utility today. At our request, Kiev City Council deputy Galina Yanchenko made a request to the water utility, but they refused to answer the city council deputy – supposedly confidential information. We managed to get a response only to the appeal of People’s Deputy Sergei Leshchenko. It turned out that the water utility itself has not operated the property for a long time, although it is still connected to the sewerage system. In 1997–2010 the complex was rented by the Kiev wastewater disposal and treatment company “Stok”. After the privatization of the property, the water utility continues to provide “water supply and wastewater collection services through the connected networks of the specified facility… on the basis of an agreement concluded in 2013” with the new owner.
So what was the confidentiality? Perhaps it’s because today, if you’ll excuse the pun, there’s no smell of sewage there. We are talking about a plot of 24 acres in Goloseevo – a stone’s throw from the Goloseevsky forest and the Holy Intercession Monastery. That is, the story is again not about pipes and taps, but about the earth. And therefore, it is not surprising that in winter an advertisement appeared on real estate websites for the sale of… a VIP estate worth $1.8 million. According to the advertisement, now there is an “elite estate”, a spacious residential complex with designer renovation, a sauna, a swimming pool and other amenities , construction work was just finishing. We talked with a realtor who willingly sent us photographs of the complex, noting that it had been rebuilt in such a way that it could be used as an estate, a hotel, and offices.
Who got the estate on General Rodimtsev Street (it was named, by the way, in honor of the general who defended Kyiv). After the story with the Radical loan, the new owner of the property complex became Jurite LTD LLC, then registered under the Cyprus Codefiber Trade LTD, but registered in the same building with the SPR Global Management companies of the same Yaroslav Behra, as well as Kyiv -Ost”, then owned by Valery But, now deputy chairman of the board of “Radical”.
And in November 2014, the property was transferred to Natalya Bovt under the purchase and sale agreement. According to our data, Natalya Bovt previously bore the surname Chudnovets and was registered at the same address as Elena Chudnovets, the owner of the company “Selena-Audit LTD” (today the company has changed its name and owner and moved to Brovary). Both the company and the people are far from strangers to Kievvodokanal – it was Selena, according to the Vodokanal’s reports, that carried out official audits for it from 2010 to 2013 inclusive.
Denis Shkurenko turned out to be registered at the same address as the Chudnovtsy. In 2011-2012 he was the owner of the company UA Group LLC. His director was Yaroslava Dzyra, known as another one of the founders of the MEOO “Aqua Dom” that we mentioned.
And here’s an interesting detail. Remember the loud statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs about the theft of millions from collection services, with which we started? Three companies won tenders for these services – one of them was UA Group. However, the water utility claims that the contract was terminated and the money was not transferred.
“ObolonNasha”
It was not only Kievvodokanal that found attractive property. Family business structures managed to take over the land and gain temporary control over the well of its former subsidiary Tekhvodservis PJSC.
Until 2001, it was part of the structure of the Kievvodokanal, then it was separated into an independent enterprise, but remained in the ownership of the city and continued to work at the facilities of the water utility – at the Dnieper water station (north of Kyiv). Among other things, this station has an artesian well, and Tekhvodservis was engaged in extracting water from it.
In 2011, Tekhvodservis, in unison with the water utility, changed its management – the company is headed by Donetsk resident Nikolai Kaplanets, who previously worked there in the marketing department. This surname has already appeared in this text. The fact is that Nikolai Kaplanets is the husband of the same Ekaterina Kaplanets from “Tantalite”.
So, the property of Tekhvodservis. With the arrival of a new manager, a new company is added to the official address of the Dneprovskaya station – branch No. 1 of the same “Gellios LTD”. Its director at that time was Dina Ablaeva, Kaplanets’ colleague at Tantalite, where she led regional development.
Over time, Gillios begins to sell artesian water, which is produced by Tekhvodservis, but under the Tsilyusha brand. Among the clients is “Tantalit” itself, and among the partners on the “Tsilyushcha” website are “Radical Bank”, SPR-Group and the children’s camp of Yanukovych’s common-law wife Lyubov Polezhay “Slavutich”. The site, by the way, was closed after we began to be interested in this topic.
But a well for water production is not the only thing that Tekhvodservis found interesting for the Family. Previously, the company had a watering station on Obolon, Heroes of Stalingrad Avenue, 8a. It was this station that was bought by Yanukovych-controlled Kyivbudzhytlo in 2012, and it is clear that not for the sake of the technical complex, but for the sake of the land. The ex-president’s family, we recall, took a fancy to and, one might say, collected Obolon: at least two apartments, a private house, and a spa. For complete Feng Shui, the only thing missing was its own sports complex: they planned to build it on the site of the watering station. In the summer of 2014, after Yanukovych had fled, the company tried to register the site, but there was a fuss and the project was never put to a vote by the Kyiv City Council. But the land can be considered lost – no one will use it as long as private property stands on it. Which, thanks to the sluggish Prosecutor General’s Office, they also managed to transfer to another owner, not officially affiliated with Yanukovych.
We managed to contact Nikolai Kaplanets by phone, who, according to him, returned to Donetsk and is engaged in the rental and sale of photo machines. Kaplanets convinces that he remains the director of Techvodservis purely technically: the company has not been operating for a year (unprofitable), and he himself cannot be officially fired due to confusion with papers. As for the well, he admitted: since the summer of 2012, water has been pumped without a license – the previous one had expired, and the new one was too expensive. That’s why “Gellios” delivered water, which might be tasty, but illegal.
As for the station on Heroes of Stalingrad, it was sold to pay off debts, says Kaplanets. It was simply the only thing that could be sold, the station had not worked for many years, because it’s good that someone bought it at all, at least for the sake of the land: “We were able to pay off the funds, pay the salary that had been hanging for many months, and the rest is for me.” it doesn’t matter – even Yanukovych, or not Yanukovych… I was never interested in who the owner is – why should I know this, my task was to pay everything that the enterprise owes.”
Will clear water flow from the Kyiv tap?
What do we have in the bottom line? Lost boarding house and three hectares in Pushcha, a private estate instead of a “confidential” sewerage system, illegal water extraction and replenishment of the “family” collection on Obolonskaya embankment. And this is just what we managed to find.
A year ago, a parliamentary appeal was sent to the Prime Minister, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even to the National Security and Defense Council about the non-transparent privatization of the water utility’s property. The police responded that the data was entered into the register of pre-trial investigations under the criminal article “arbitrariness.” There have been no further reports of this.
At the same time, we observe Olympic calm in the Kyiv authorities, in the management of the water utility there is the same management from the “good old days”, in the owners there are the same unkilled offshore companies. Who is behind the island “gaskets” today is still unknown, because it is impossible to discover the real beneficiaries. We tried to find at least their official representatives: thanks to the request of People’s Deputy Sergei Leshchenko, we obtained the minutes of the meetings of KEH shareholders, but it turned out that these people were prudently not even included in the minutes.
For a long time we sought a personal interview with the head of Kievvodokanal, Andrey Bilyk, but after accusations from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he refused to meet. It was not possible to find Jaroslav Beru. His contacts were not found either at the water utility or at Kyiveneroholding; moreover, the current director of KEH Anna Gladka assured that she had never seen him and she did not have a phone number. We sent a written request to his “Radical Bank” mailbox, and we are still waiting for a response.
Meanwhile, in May, Kievvodokanal increases tariffs for its services by more than a third. They explain this by absolutely logical factors: electricity has become more expensive, repairs are needed, prices for reagents have increased due to the exchange rate, it’s time to recalculate salaries. But it’s unclear who the people of Kiev actually pay for water. As well as how much land and property their water utility still has left, which it may lose in the course of future effective business processes.