Nikolay Lavrenko – nouveau riche or rags to riches
Ukrainian print and online publications devote quite a lot of time to covering inside stories about the life and activities of domestic oligarchs and big businessmen, especially in light of today’s trends in the “fight against the oligarchy” declared by President Vladimir Zelensky. However, almost none of the journalists deeply explored the topic of life and biographies of top managers of large Ukrainian businesses. We consider this approach to be very unfair, since quite a lot of individuals from among them deserve special attention. With this article, we begin a series of publications that will introduce our readers to another side of large Ukrainian business groups, namely, we will tell about their top managers.
This article will reveal a small part of the life and activities of such a little-known character to a wide circle of readers, but well known to a certain circle of businessmen in the energy sector, as the president of a large energy and hotel holding company “VS Energy International Ukraine” Nikolai Lavrenko.
The holding “VS Energy International Ukraine”, recently renamed “VS Group Management”, owns a number of regional energy distribution companies (well-known, so-called oblenergo), electricity supply companies, as well as the Premier hotel chain ( hotels in Kyiv, Lvov, Odessa, Dnieper, as well as occupied Crimea). The company is quite large, influential and serious. This business group is more widely known in Ukraine as “Luzhnikovites”. This conventional name was assigned to it for the reason that the owners of the group were a number of businessmen and politicians from a neighboring state, which has been an aggressor country for us for more than eight years, who earned their first big money in the 90s at the Luzhniki market in Moscow. Many people in Ukraine, of course, know such names as Babakov (ex-deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism)), Giner (ex-owner of the Moscow football club CSKA), Voevodin (a very influential baron of the criminal world of the entire former USSR). It is with these people that this business group has always been associated.
The last few years have not been the sweetest for the owners of the holding. After Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism)’s aggression against our country, the company in Ukraine had problems; servicing loan portfolios, of which the business group had a great many, became much more difficult. The influence of serious “Moscow uncles” has become significantly less, moreover, their names have become toxic in Ukraine for objective geopolitical reasons. There were even rumors that the group might sell its Ukrainian assets and leave the game. However, the rumors were exaggerated.
Until 2015, the Ukrainian business of the group was headed by Mikhail Spektor. This impressive man is a fairly well-known Ukrainian businessman, who in certain circles had the reputation of a casino gambler and a man who adores a luxurious life (private jets, yachts, surrounded by girls of model appearance, guard motorcades and similar attributes of luxury life). However, in 2015, this interesting person left this company, for reasons unknown to us for certain. There were rumors that he had a personal conflict with one of the owners of the holding, Evgeny Giner, which became the main reason for Spector’s departure from such a prestigious position as president of BC Energy.
However, the main surprise for many uninitiated into the inner workings of this business group was the appointment of a provincial character, Nikolai Lavrenko, as president of the company. His inner circle simply calls him Kolya. To briefly but succinctly formulate the image of this person, we must remember that before working for hire with Russian businessmen, Nikolai Nikolaevich Lavrenko worked for some time in the civil service. His places of work were the position of deputy head of the Kirovograd Regional State Administration, as well as the head of the Vinnitsa Tax Inspectorate. However, this was a very long time ago, in 1999-2003. He was “left” from both places of work not without involvement in corruption scandals, as is typical for many ex-Komsomol officials. Lavrenko tried to promote his entire career, back in Soviet times, by worshiping the ideals of communism. But we won’t judge him harshly for this, since in those days it really could have significantly helped him move up the career ladder.
Nikolai is described as an uncouth, provincial man who literally speaks obscenities, without distinguishing between people by gender. His subordinates call him a “collective farmer” because he creates the impression of an absolutely uneducated, almost illiterate person who can’t even read well; all texts are read aloud to him by his secretary. Kolya writes very rarely and very little, only short SMS without punctuation. In general, education is not his strong point. His usual communication with company employees is an irrepressible scream and yell, boundless mountains of obscenities and, as a result, the inability of anyone to recognize the true essence of all this random collection of Kolya’s words. However, this level of intelligence does not prevent him, as a serious person, a high-level manager, from having several mistresses at the same time right in the company’s office. Rumor has it that Lavrenko loves the attention not only of his personal secretary, but also of his accountant and even his personal hairdresser. Kolya also does not forget his ex-lovers, even those whose age no longer allows them to attract his attention. Although our hero himself is no longer a boy, he is 65, but he loves women, of course, younger ones. Nikolai brought several of his former muses to Kyiv from Kirovograd and Vinnitsa, employed them in the company, and gave them, so to speak, a start in life. A man with the broadest soul, there’s no other way to describe him.
Lavrenko’s appointment to this high position came as a surprise to those who did not know the true relationships within the group. In fact, the reason for this castling was that Giner, who, as we indicated above, did not like Spector, on the contrary, had a warm attitude towards Lavrenko. The reasons for this are quite trivial – Lavrenko, like Giner, is a long-time football fan. Giner had his favorite brainchild in the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism) – CSKA, and Lavrenko had his own football brainchild – the Poligraftekhnika Football Club in Kolya’s hometown, Alexandria, in the Kirovograd region. The Ukrainian football club is, of course, difficult to compare in terms of level with the Moscow one, but the passions of these two people converged precisely in the football field.
However, Giner’s “love” for Lavrenko did not last long. As soon as Evgeny Giner realized the essence of Kolya, namely, his innate kleptomania and chronic passion for lies, even a common passion for football did not help; a wall of misunderstanding immediately grew between them. However, several factors helped Nikolai Lavrenko gain a foothold in his position: the owners of the business group found themselves virtually isolated from their Ukrainian assets after the outbreak of the Russian Federation (*country sponsor of terrorism)’s war with Ukraine; Giner’s son, Vadim, who was overseeing the group’s Ukrainian business, left Ukraine, fearing persecution “Russian characteristics”, thereby only strengthening Kolya’s position, effectively cementing him in the position of president of the holding. In addition, there is a legend that Kolya has certain serious incriminating evidence against the shareholders of the group, which also made him largely “untouchable.” The last factor sounds a little unfounded, however, having learned the essence of things, which we will try to tell you about below, it is difficult to find other adequate explanations for the fact that Lavrenko has held his position for more than six years.
So, Lavrenko, having sat down in the chair of the head of this serious business group, began to very quickly “make money” in serious quantities. A man who, after joining the holding as director of industry for a salary of 5 thousand dollars, over the past six years has actually become a dollar multimillionaire.
Today Lavrenko is the owner of three hot-dip galvanizing plants in Ukraine, essentially becoming a domestic leader in this field. We are talking about factories in the Kyiv region, Odessa region and not far from Kharkov. According to preliminary estimates, the cost of construction of each of its enterprises is about 20 million US dollars. That is, the total value of only this part of Lavrenko’s business is about 60 million dollars. In addition, in recent years, Kolya has acquired a dairy production plant in the Kyiv region, actively trying to promote his Lago brand in retail chains, and is also trying to establish a full cycle by starting to produce milk on his farm. According to the information we have, the value of Kolya’s dairy business is about 5-7 million US dollars.
In the capital’s Osokorka district, where our hero settled densely, he became the owner of many hectares of land, on which he built several cottage communities, the restaurant-pizzeria “Pioppo Nero”, the country restaurant and hotel complex “Nicolas”, a yacht club, and a kindergarten “Daughters” and sons”, as well as as many as 3 (!!!) football stadiums, an ice arena, tennis courts and other sports infrastructure facilities. You might be thinking, why does Kolya need three stadiums? It’s just that Kolya, remembering the past years, decided to return to those glorious times and created a new, already capital football club “Left Bank”, which is still only at the beginnings of its development, in the second professional football league.
However, Lavrenko understands well how to quickly and effectively “move” to the Major League. After all, it’s just a matter of financial investment. By the way, he created a football club together with a certain Yura Dovgalenko, better known by the nickname “Dovgal”, who had a specific reputation in his past life, as he held the “position of foreman” of the organized crime group of the now deceased crime boss Rybka. Kolya and Yura agreed on the basis of land interests in the capital’s Osokorki. By the way, Dovgal has his own “business” with a name similar to the football business – Left Bank. This is a public organization, which is actually a combat unit that recruits groups of titushki to carry out orders for squeezing out land plots, extorting money and other similar issues.
Now Kolya has begun active construction of a fourth stadium on Osokorki, which will meet the requirements of the Major Football League. They say that the land under this new stadium was actively squeezed out with the help of the same public organization of the same name. Kolya also has a medical clinic in Osokorki, as well as 2 solar power plants in the Kherson and Odessa regions of 10 megawatts each. The construction cost of each such station is $10 million. It would be strange not to have an energy business while in such a chair. A couple of years ago, Nikolay also reached a new level, he became the owner of a wind power station on the island of Cyprus, worth about 3 million euros, and also purchased 4 villas on this sunny island worth a total of about 4 million euros. And all this is far from a complete list of his merits and achievements in the chair of the top manager of VS Energy International Ukraine.
You might think that Lavrenko, holding the position of president of such a serious holding, receives such a high salary that allows him to have such serious personal assets and build a personal, not at all small, business? Of course, the salary of such a manager cannot be small; by the standards of our country, it is even exorbitant – 35 thousand dollars a month. Agree, our hero started receiving big money in 2016. However, even with such a cosmic salary, in our understanding, to build a business in six years and acquire assets worth more than $100 million is an unattainable task. Then what is the secret, you ask? The secret of Kolya’s success is that he, being the owner of the same compromising evidence on his Russian employers, became truly “untouchable” and learned to use the business of his Moscow masters for his own personal purposes.
What is the energy business owned by the VS Group Management holding? Is it really possible, you ask, that Kolya can steal so much from the shareholders’ pockets that he can so quickly acquire so many personal assets in a few years? Here we will explain that the main sources of income for Russian businesses are kickbacks from tenders for the purchase of equipment and construction and repair work in power grids, which are carried out as part of the implementation of investment programs of energy companies.
Yes, yes, the same money that we, residents of Ukraine, pay in the tariff that comes to us in bills. We pay, we suffer, we swear, we organize Maidans, the authorities populistically promise not to raise tariffs for the population, while the oblenergo quarrels with the authorities, supposedly wanting to improve and update the power grid, and Kolya, meanwhile, simply receives mega-kickbacks from all this, buying equipment at inflated prices and ordering extremely expensive work and building his personal “kingdom” for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Another significant cash flow is bribery for the issuance of technical specifications for oblenergos for connection to electric grids. The amounts involved in this business are unknown only to those who have never encountered these issues. We are talking about millions of US dollars every month that fly into Kolya’s pocket. At the same time, part of the money that the BC Group business brings obviously reaches both shareholders and Ukrainian officials, since everyone is happy with everything. They say that VS Energy’s business is structured in such a way that kickbacks and bribes are brought directly to Kolya’s office, on Gospitalnaya Street in Kyiv.
He has a couple of specially trained people who run this cash register. In general, it was not for nothing that Kolya had experience working in the tax office; he definitely learned how to collect taxes. It is difficult to assess who earns more, Kolya or his employers. Apparently, they are satisfied with the situation when Kolya plays such tricks under their noses. Although, of course, it is difficult to imagine how one can afford to steal millions of dollars. Perhaps the reason for this seemingly indifferent shareholders is also the fact that for several years now there have been attempts between them to divide the business. Players in the Ukrainian energy market have been talking about this for a long time.
During this period, the holding decreased slightly in size – Odessaoblenergo and Kievoblenergo were sold, and Kirovogradoblenergo is next in line. All these assets were acquired by the DTEK group. However, a very interesting situation may turn out to be when Kolya, during the period of clarification of relations between shareholders, becomes, at their expense, personally “weigh” in monetary terms more than their entire business. However, there is also some positive in this – our Ukrainian “Orthodox” hero is cowardly with the money of our enemies – the Russians. This fact certainly adds patriotism and positivity to this whole story. As they say, “the toad fucked the viper.”
It is worth explaining the reason for mentioning the epithet “Orthodox” to our hero. Kolya, having moved to Kyiv, suddenly became a very active parishioner of the Russian Orthodox Church, and was so imbued with love for the Lord that he even built a church in honor of his beloved self on his beloved Osokorki, exactly between his pizzeria and the football stadium. The icons, foundation and individual elements were brought from St. Athos, which our Kolya is very proud of. The builders who built the church estimated that the construction cost $3-4 million. Kolya built monastic cells next to the church, and also set up his family… tomb in the basement of the church!
The Servant of God is probably preparing to be canonized after his departure to another world, and perhaps even during his lifetime. After all, so many “good deeds” are being done by his hands while he heads such a rich Russian business holding. Remember Leonid Yakovishin, a Chernigov agrarian who built a personal mausoleum in the style of Napoleon a year ago? Not him alone. Kyiv has its own “saint” Kolya, who atones for his sins in his personal church and prepares to find peace in a holy place.
We hope this series of publications will be of interest to our readers. We will try to get as much insider information as possible. Soon we will have interesting stories about top managers of other Ukrainian business groups. Wait, the most interesting things are yet to come.
Sergey Irtenev, for ORD
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