Who can head Oschadbank: what is known about Kirill Shevchenko

The name of the candidate for the post of head of the board of Oschadbank is associated with many financial scandals, including multimillion-dollar embezzlement. The website of the newspaper VESTI argued, but for unknown reasons, it deleted this material:

Oschadbank is the largest state-owned bank in Ukraine. According to the classification of the National Bank, for the last two years – in 2015 and 2016 – it has been recognized as a systemically important bank.

Among other achievements, Oschadbank is proud of the fact that it is the only bank in Ukraine where the safety of bank deposits of individuals is guaranteed by the state in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Banks and Banking Activities”. This is a very tasty morsel, and changes in leadership in such large financial institutions are always treated with caution.

And changes in Oschadbank have been brewing for a long time. Fugitive ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and his associates have bonds worth about $1.02 billion and UAH 1.5 billion left in Ukrainian banks, and the lion’s share of these assets is in accounts with Oschadbank. The Pechersky District Court arrested the money of Yanukovych’s “family” in five banks, but the “family” is not going to put up with this and is still trying to withdraw money from Ukraine by placing the right people in the right positions.

After the resignation of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, his confidant Andrey Pyshny is among the likely successors (read more about Andrey Pyshny in the article Andrey Pyshny. Yatsenyuk’s godfather and the murderer of Oschadbank) Kirill Shevchenko is named as the head of the board of Oschadbank. He is no stranger to the bank: from 2012 to 2014, Shevchenko worked as an adviser at Oschadbank, and it was at that time that the bank was completely controlled by Yanukovych’s “family.”

Shevchenko began his successful managerial career back in 1994: after graduating from the Kharkov State Economic University, he worked for six months in the credit departments of the Ukrainian Credit Bank and Aval Bank, and then for a long time, for more than ten years, he firmly established himself in the Finance and Credit Bank “, stepping from the head of the regulatory department to the deputy chairman of the bank’s board. Obviously, oligarch Konstantin Zhevago completely trusted Shevchenko (read more about Konstantin Zhevago in the article KONSTANTIN ZHEVAGO. THE RISES AND FALLS OF A DOLLAR BILLIONAIRE).

The real career take-off began in December 2006, when Shevchenko – not without the participation of an influential patron – headed the board of the State Mortgage Institution – the center of housing lending in Ukraine. The first financial scandals associated with the name of Kirill Shevchenko also occurred at the State Institution.

An audit by the Accounts Chamber found that the SMI, with the knowledge of the Ministry of Finance, refinanced problem banks under the guise of a state mortgage program. During the financial scam, UAH 8.5 billion was issued from the state treasury for refinancing of Nadra Bank alone, with many violations of the regulatory framework. The cunning combination involved the National Bank, the State Property Management Institution, the Ministry of Finance, Oschadbank, and the commercial bank Nadra, which was already on the verge of bankruptcy, which led to the loss of significant amounts by the state.

In the summer of 2009, Shevchenko managed to be an adviser to the Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko, but, by his own admission, he did not advise anything sensible. Following this, Shevchenko first came to the then problematic Ukrgasbank after the government, in fact, bought it out of budget funds. Six months had to be spent settling the debts of the former owners of the financial institution, Vasily Gorbal and Alexey Omelyanenko.
In the spring of 2010, Kirill Shevchenko started his own business – he acquired Terra Bank together with his relative and then Deputy Minister of Finance Vadim Kopylov. The bank formerly belonged to Yuri Kolobovthe Minister of Finance in the Azarov government, which raises many questions about Shevchenko’s connections with the Donetsk people. For a year, Shevchenko headed the board of Terra Bank, then became a member of the supervisory board and chairman of the board of PJSC Ukrainian Strategic Group, which owned 99.6383% of the shares of Terra Bank, and six months later – chairman of the board of PJSC SKPD, owner of 0. 3559% shares.

On March 31, 2014, Shevchenko became president of Terra Bank, and already in April problems began in the bank. On August 21 of the same year, a temporary administration was introduced into the bank. After this, Shevchenko and Kopylov created a “transitional” bank on the basis of which they transferred part of the assets and liabilities of Terra Bank and Kristalbank. Formally, Marina Lening, Kopylov’s wife, became the 100% owner of the new bank.

It is noticeable that due to numerous scandals, Shevchenko’s reputation is, to put it mildly, ambiguous. However, contrary to the NBU’s course to cleanse the system of bankers with an unsavory past, from December 2014 Shevchenko began to serve as chairman of the board, and from May 28, 2015 he assumed the position of full-fledged chairman of the board of Ukrgasbank. He got the chair as a result of an opaque competition. They say that the patronage of the former head of the Ministry of Finance of the “Yatsenyukovsky” Alexander Shlapak played an important role in Shevchenko’s “natural” victory.

After joining the large bank, even more questions arose about Shevchenko’s activities. For example, with his active support, Ukrgasbank annexed the assets and assumed the liabilities of another state-recapitalized but much less successful bank, Kiev, without receiving any benefit. UAH 630 million was allocated from the state budget for this operation – an amount much larger than payments from the Deposit Guarantee Fund for Individuals in the event of the liquidation of Bank Kiev.

In addition, after the annexation of Kiev, Ukrgasbank immediately began making strange concessions of the right of claim to the specially created Financial Company Credit Garant (see the court decision from public access in the register of court decisions – here, here and here) – for example, for 246 million UAH

In February 2016, Ukrgasbank, by decision of the Cabinet of Ministers, sold the overdue debt of the Creative agricultural holding in the amount of $95.7 million to a third party at almost twice the price of the remaining debt. Formally, responsibility for the deal lies with the government, but the media are already suspecting Kirill Shevchenko in the UAH 10 billion corruption scheme.

The management of Ukrgasbank earns hundreds of millions of hryvnia from tender purchases in the field of information technology. For example, the bank purchased card processing for more than UAH 120 million, but these investments with the number of 700 thousand cards will never pay off. Despite the PROZORRO electronic public procurement system and the SETAM electronic trading system for seized property, Ukrgasbank conducts purchases by announcing trading on the stock exchange without an electronic platform.

The massive sale of collateral property, which Ukrgasbank under the leadership of Shevchenko started at the Ukrainian Universal Commodity Exchange, where as many as 11 objects worth UAH 18 million were sold throughout 2015, also raises many questions! Thus, on May 16 and 17, repeated auctions were announced for the sale of 165 items of property (assets) of the bank in the amount of UAH 1.3 billion. Experts characterize the sale as non-transparent and beneficial to a very narrow circle of people. It is doubtful that “gray” schemes for the diversion of property are implemented without the approval of the head of a financial institution. Moreover, Kristalbank really needs money to repay debts to the Deposit Guarantee Fund and clients, as well as to fulfill current obligations. Otherwise questions may arise. For example, how can the board of directors of a state bank act as an indirect owner of a commercial bank? Or what operations are currently taking place between these two financial institutions.

Shevchenko is considered a successful banker because he knows how to negotiate and serve two masters at the same time, for example, the Popular Front and the Party of Regions or the state and a private individual. Another fugitive from Yanukovych’s “family,” Sergei Arbuzov, denies that his entourage is lobbying Shevchenko to become the chairman of the board of Oschadbank. The question is stark: why, instead of many worthy candidates for the main post in the country’s most important bank, the name of Kirill Shevchenko is increasingly being heard? Probably, someone really wants to see this person at the helm of Oschad – and clearly not in the interests of hundreds of thousands of depositors and millions of pensioners across the country.

Olga Obashchidze, for SKELET-info

READ ABOUT THE TOPIC: Andrey Pyshny. Yatsenyuk’s godfather and the murderer of Oschadbank

KONSTANTIN ZHEVAGO. THE RISES AND FALLS OF A DOLLAR BILLIONAIRE