The owner of the Gulliver and Eldorado shopping malls can lose assets. Viktor Polishchuk again does not pay loans to state banks. What is this business?

The owner of the Gulliver shopping and entertainment center, Viktor Polishchuk, is again negotiating with state-owned banks to restructure loans. His companies have not serviced their debts since the beginning of the war, which the businessman explains by the losses associated with the Russian invasion, writes Forbes. Does this threaten Polishchuk's business and what are the state banks going to do?

The companies of Viktor Polishchuk, 46, which manage the BFC Gulliver, the Eldorado electronics and household appliances network, and several large warehouses, have stopped servicing loans to state banks since the beginning of the war. Therefore, they may lose collateral, four Forbes interlocutors in the commercial real estate market and in Oschadbank and Ukreximbank, who lent money to the businessman, told.

State banks decide what to do with loans. The options are to collect collateral, sell the rights of claim on the loan, or agree on another restructuring.

Will the institutions take the main assets of Polishchuk and what does this mean for his business?

How exactly “Oshchad” and Exim credited Polishchuk's business

The loans of Polishchuk's companies in state-owned banks have become problematic for the second time. The businessman restructured the debts of Eldorado to Oschad in 2018, and to Gulliver to Oschad and Exim in 2020. The third borrower is the RLC company, which manages Polishchuk's warehouse business (three logistics complexes in the Kyiv and Odessa regions with a total area of ​​more than 260,000 sq. m.). She was also financed by Oschadbank.

The terms of the agreement on the restructuring of the debts of Eldorado (among the borrowers are the companies Diesa, Technopolis-1, Techenergotrade) for $120 million are unknown. Gulliver's managing company, Three O, was able to extend the loan until 2044. The controller “Three O” in the state register is not Polishchuk, but Vyacheslav Ignatenko. The businessman legalized himself as an owner by providing a personal loan order, two interlocutors from Sberbank and the NBU said. Polishchuk also personally negotiated restructuring in 2020, the manager of one of the state-owned banks says on the condition of anonymity.

The complex, which opened in 2013, is Polishchuk's most expensive asset. In 2021, Forbes estimated “Gulliver” at about $ 100 million. The general condition of Polishchuk, who also topped the rating of rentiers, was $ 275 million.

Gulliver was built with loans: Oschadbank provided the bulk of $441 million ($353 million), and about a quarter was provided by Exim. Polishchuk acquired an unfinished asset in 2012, according to Kommersant. The previous beneficiaries of the complex were Vagif Aliyev, Aleksey Kucherenko and Sergey Veselov.

Repayment was supposed to take place in 2025, but after the 2014-2016 crisis, the debt stopped being serviced. It was during this period that Polischuk's Mikhailovsky bank went bankrupt, where the NBU recorded large-scale fraud with clients' funds. Polishchuk is not on the list of suspects in this case.

In 2018, state-owned banks tried in vain to sell the rights of claim on the Gulliver loan (the starting price was UAH 18 billion), but no one was willing to become Polishchuk's new creditor. Why? “Gulliver” was not pledged as an integral property complex, – explained one of the Forbes interlocutors involved in the negotiations. “The new owner would not be able, for example, to use elevators or would face other obstacles to work.”

Will the state-owned banks take Gulliver and Eldorado's assets, since Viktor Polishchuk is not paying again?

After the start of the war, payments on Gulliver, Eldorado and warehouse complexes stopped, the official says on the condition of anonymity in one from state banks. As collateral, respectively, the CFC itself, goods in terms of turnover and the warehouse itself act as collateral. In 2021, Forbes valued Eldorado at $80 million, the warehouse business at about $60 million.

Currently, the businessman is trying to negotiate with creditors. His argument is a significant loss of business. This is especially true for warehouses: in mid-March, a large-scale fire broke out in one of the complexes near Brovary, Kyiv region, due to Russian shelling. More than 70% of the warehouse space used by the Eldorado network was located in the Kyiv region.

“One of the warehouses in the Brovarsky district was damaged, so we were forced to urgently evacuate the goods to the west of the country” ,” the network's press service said in a written comment.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the media have hardly mentioned Polishchuk. The only episode – in mid-March, they tried to take three Rolls-Royces out of Ukraine. “Luxury vehicles registered to a Ukrainian private company… According to available information, the beneficiary of the company is a person associated with one of the officials of the Russian Federation, ”the SBI said then.

Later, the Mind edition, citing the State Bureau of Investigation, wrote that two cars belong to Polishchuk. Why did the State Bureau of Investigation indicate a connection with a Russian official? The probable reason is that the Ukrainian media, in particular Ekonomicheskaya Pravda, wrote that Polishchuk's wife, Lilia Rezvaya, is the niece of the wife of ex-President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev. Rezva herself is not on the list of sanctioned persons of Ukraine.

According to Forbes, Polishchuk's income from rent in 2021 was $70 million. For example, among the tenants of premises in the 35-story Gulliver are Coca-Cola, Grammarly, Ciklum, Louis Dreifus, Uber. Now the situation is probably worse. In November, according to the consulting company UTG, the number of visitors to the capital's malls was 35-45% lower compared to last year.

Will state banks agree to restructure Polishchuk's debts again? Interlocutors in both Oschada and Exim say that they have not yet made a final decision. Eximbank is considering selling its share in the loan under Gulliver, while Oschad does not rule out the recovery of assets.

“We don’t really like that in recent years, judicial practice to satisfy the rights of claims on mortgages shows no in favor of the creditor,” says a bank official who asked not to be named in this article.

At the time of publication, the Gulliver press service did not respond to Forbes’ request for comment. Eldorado reported that they would not comment on this topic.

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