Yuri Vitrenko. Oil and gas business tycoons

Yuri Vitrenko is the son of PSPU leader Natalia Vitrenko and a major financial tycoon who decides affairs of a national scale. He trained and worked not in the impoverished “brotherly” country of the USSR, which his mother, a progressive socialist, advocates and nostalgizes about, but in the countries of decaying capitalism in Europe and America.

Having gained experience, the foreign manager committed scams at NJSC Neftegaz, and then founded an investment company that wanted to make money from the bankruptcy of the state-owned enterprise Coal of Ukraine.

Today Vitrenko is practically at the helm of NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine (Naftogaz of Ukraine), being the commercial director of the company, and uses all his “foreign” experience “for the benefit” of Ukraine.

Yuri Vitrenko. Family matters

On September 17, 1976, in Kyiv, a second child was born into the unremarkable young Soviet family of Natalya and Yuri Vitrenko. Happy parents named him Yuri after his father. The boy grew up in a truly ordinary family: his mother was finishing her graduate studies at the Kyiv Institute of National Economy, and his father worked as an economist at the Podolsk branch of the State Bank in the capital.

Father of Yuri Vitrenko, also Yuri

By the birth of their second child, Natalya and Yuri Vitrenko were actively moving along the party line: the girl joined the CPSU, and the young man was deputy secretary of the Komsomol Committee, secretary of the Komsomol Committee of the Kyiv Institute of National Economy. D.S. Korotchenko. As you already understand, we are talking about the same Vitrenkos – Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the PSPU, and Yuri Vitrenko, deputy. Minister of Economy in the government of Mykola Azarov (more about him in the article Mykola Azarov. Survivor).

At the age of 5, little Yura’s parents sent him to Kyiv Ukrainian-language school No. 172. Apparently, the then young Natalya Vitrenko, now a progressive socialist who despises everything Ukrainian, did not come to her radical views. The decision to send their child to school so early was made by the parents, most likely due to a turning point in their careers. Natalya becomes an associate professor at the statistical department of KINH, and Yuri Vitrenko goes to work at the Ministry of Finance of the Ukrainian SSR as a leading economist in the department of financing education, science and culture.

Vitrenko family

After the 8th grade, Yuri entered the economics class of gymnasium No. 153. At the same time, he studied at the Kyiv School of Management “STEP”, which was transformed into the Lyceum of Economics and Business (since 1993 – the Kiev Lyceum of Business). At this time, a discord occurred in the prosperous Vitrenko family. Rumor has it that Vitrenko Sr. could not stand his wife’s tough temper and her political views, so in 1991 he filed for divorce. Perhaps the reason for the break was the rapid career of the head of the family – he was appointed deputy head of the department of economics and forecasts for the development of public education and culture of the Ministry of Economy of Ukraine. He didn’t need a scandalous wife. Vitrenko Sr. took his son to live with him.

Young prodigy

While studying at the Lyceum of Economics and Business, immediately after his parents’ divorce, Yuri Vitrenko gained his first experience in finance by going on an internship. A 15-year-old boy became an assistant accountant at PJSC Ukrinbank. By the way, through this bank in 2014, representatives of the All-Ukrainian public women’s organization “Gift of Life”, headed by Natalya Vitrenko, wanted to transfer 2 million hryvnia to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism).

After completing an internship and gaining experience, the young specialist got a job in 1992. No, he didn’t hand out flyers or mop the floors at McDonald’s. Vitrenko took the position of analyst at the Ukrainian Financial Group. At the same time, the child prodigy entered the Kyiv National Economic University at the Faculty of International Economics. He worked in his free time from studying at the hospital.

In 1995, a gifted student was again invited to PJSC Ukrinbank. There he became a specialist of the 2nd category in the management of foreign economic activity and international payments. While working at a bank, Vitrenko graduated from KNEU with honors. Then Yuri did not work for a year, deciding to gain knowledge of international business management at the master’s program at KNEU. Upon completion, again, a red diploma. During his studies, Vitrenko Jr. traveled to the “decaying” States to do an internship at the University of Science and Technology of Iowa. Strange, but his mother was not at all against such trips.

After graduating from university, the master’s degree student got a job in the Ukrainian division of the international auditing and consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). He tried to combine this field of activity with scientific research – holding the position of junior researcher in the department of international integration strategy of the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. But in the end, the consulting streak won out. Vitrenko spent 2 years moving from position to position in the management consulting division of PwC, and then became a senior consultant on financial management issues. The specialist supervised the financial strategies of domestic and international companies. At this time, another successful young genius Andrey Kobolev (more about him: Andrey Kobolev. An inconspicuous “veteran” of the gas pipe). Yuri Vitrenko took Kobolev under his wing. The tandem turned out to be so successful that the young people have been working together for 15 years.

“Eternal Advisor” and foreign experience

In 2002, by decree of President Leonid Kuchma, NJSC Neftegaz was headed by Yuri Boyko (Read about him in the article YURIY BOYKO – “UNTOUCHABLE”). Those were troubled years – the leaders of the monopolist did not stay in office for long. It would be good if they simply left the post and went underground without money, but some were less fortunate – criminal cases were opened against them. Boyko turned out to be smarter than his predecessors and decided to invent new schemes for money laundering offshore, but only under the guise of the law. To do this, he needed people who understood the securities of NAC corporate securities, could attract foreign loans and be responsible for international financial transactions. It’s strange, but they wanted to assign these responsibilities to newcomers. Most likely, Boyko and his associates decided to rake in their fortune through the hands of others.

Neftegaz has opened vacancies for specialist consultants in international finance and corporate law. Luck smiled immediately – two suitable candidates were found – Yuri Vitrenko and Andrey Kobolev. The first applicant even sent his resume to NAC.

And the biggest oddity emerged – it turned out that the young prodigy did not have such a solid track record behind him as his official biography tells the average person. Based on his resume, Yuri Vitrenko studied until 2002, worked at an academic institute for 4 months and at PWC for another 3 months. Despite this, he was accepted into NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine. 26-year-old Vitrenko immediately (!!!) became an assistant to Deputy Chairman of the Board Alexander Kovalko (son-in-law of Anatoly Kinakh). His friend, 24-year-old Kobolev, was content with less – the chair of the chief specialist in the department of corporate finance and pricing policy. However, the appointments were not random. How did I find out? Skelet.Infothe guys were protected by sister Kovalko, who then worked with them at the auditing and consulting company PwC.

Vitrenko dealt with financial issues at NJSC: he calculated gas prices and reverse prices, concluded contracts, and took out loans.

At the beginning of 2004, Yuri Vitrenko quit his job at Naftogaz and decided to go to study at the European MBA school Insead. As a matter of fact, he did not leave NAC: the irreplaceable assistant continued to help his boss, only from a distance. Upon completion of Insead, the newly minted specialist was offered a summer internship at the investment bank Merrill Lynch in London. Vitrenko had a lot of time, so he agreed.

In the fall of 2004, Yuri Yuryevich returned to Ukraine with a new store of knowledge. NAC welcomes the prodigal son with open arms. He receives the position of deputy head of the department, and soon becomes head of the department of economics and pricing policy. But bad luck – the Orange Revolution ruined everyone’s plans. Natalya Vitrenko found herself in disgrace, so her son, through higher officials, is asked to leave the state monopolist, and the head of NAC changes – Alexey Ivchenko takes the chair. Rumor has it that Viktor Yushchenko personally called Ivchenko and asked him to remove the unwanted person. Vitrenko did not adapt to the authorities and went to London, where he got a job at Merrill Lynch bank. The employee’s starting salary was $110 thousand per year, plus the same bonus.

Yuri Yuryevich was involved in mergers and acquisitions of companies in the markets of Ukraine, Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and Eastern Europe. With his direct participation, the largest domestic banks Aval and Ukrsotsbank passed into the hands of foreigners. A very interesting story happened with Bank Aval. Alexander Derkach and his partner Fedor Shpig sold the financial institution to the Austrian group Raiffeisen International for a then-record $1.028 billion. However, initially the negotiations were about $400-600 million. An increase in the sales amount can be associated with good advertising of the bank’s brand to potential buyers and with an increase in capital. But it makes more sense that one of the speculator curators simply played on the deal and received a kickback.

But Yuri Yuryevich could not part with NAC Neftegaz. His homeland called him back in 2006. After leaving Foggy Albion, Vitrenko immediately became an adviser to the chairman of the board of NAC, Vladimir Sheludchenko, and after some time, the chief adviser.

During this period, a gas conflict broke out between Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) and Ukraine. The Russian concern Gazprom intended to increase prices for gas supplied to Ukraine in accordance with the price level on the European gas market. Only Naftogaz did not agree with this. And then the following happened: Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism) stopped supplying gas to Ukraine, but the country continued to use blue fuel from the gas transportation network for several days. The escalation of the scandal led to the entry of the Swiss company RosUkrEnergo into the gas market (50% of the shares are owned by Gazprom and Centragas Holding AG; the owners of the latter are Dmitry Firtash and Ivan Fursin – more about them: DMITRY FIRTASH. THE HISTORY OF TERNOPIL BILLIONAIRE and Ivan Fursin: how Lyovochkin’s friends milked and are milking Ukraine). She was the only intermediary between Gazprom and Neftegaz. It should be noted that RosUkrEnergo began to participate in the gas supply scheme precisely from the supply of NAC. There is no point in talking about a profitable contract for Ukraine. Most likely, the “Swiss” were simply allowed to make money. Firtash and Fursin received $1.5 million from the deal.

In 2007, Vitrenko left NAC. However, he remained a freelance adviser to all subsequent leaders of the monopolist.

A year later, the chairman of the board of Naftogaz, Oleg Dubin, turned to Yuri Yuryevich for help. More precisely, he instructed his formal adviser Andrei Kobolev and freelance adviser Yuri Vitrenko to correct the mistakes they had made. The point was this. A month after Yuri Vitrenko arrived from London in 2006 and began working at NJSC Naftegaz, a loan agreement was concluded with the London branch of Credit Suisse AG bank. The monopolist borrowed $550 million from the bank at 3.5% per annum. The loan term was running out, but there was no money. Then Yuri Vitrenko comes up with a brilliant idea – to pay off the debt and launder the money. He tells it to Andrey Kobolev. And it starts. They decided to restructure the external debt through a formal exchange of Eurobonds and other obligations for new securities of their own issue. Upon completion of the operation, a debt remained – $0.3 million and … a currency option, moreover, from the initial loan amount, i.e. not from the remaining 0.3 million dollars, but from 550 million. The interest rate also increased from 3.5% to 9.5%. As a result, Neftegaz paid: $7.8 million in commission to the dealer-manager of the London bank, $1.6 million in bank fees, $55 million in the option. And attention! Until 2011, NAC had to pay another $155 million under the option. An interesting nuance: the procedure involved a foreign company, Squire Capital Limited, registered in Cyprus six months before the start of the restructuring.

Yuriy Vitrenko also took part in the signing of a gas contract with Gazprom that was unfavorable for Ukraine in 2009. His role was to calculate the adequate cost of gas and think through all the terms of the deal. As a result, Ukraine received blue fuel at a record price of $450. Yuri Yuryevich in this situation played to the benefit of Vladimir Putin (*criminal) and Yulia Tymoshenko. But no one could prove his guilt.

Yuri Vitrenko. Play for big

Having officially finished working at NJSC Neftegaz and having played enough of being a civil servant, Yuri Vitrenko realized that it was time to go into big business. In 2008, he became one of the managers of the private investment fund Amstar Europe, part of the international group of Amstar funds headquartered in Denver, USA.

The fund was doing nothing more than buying up land. In 2009, Amstar Europe acquired land plots with a total area of ​​54 hectares along the Kyiv-Zhytomyr highway (E-40) in the Kyiv region. There it was planned to build a logistics center and a premium cottage community, Manor Springs Gated Community.

Premium cottage town project Manor Springs Gated Community

By the beginning of 2010, the fund’s Ukrainian portfolio included about 40 land plots.

In 2010, Yuri Vitrenko decided to build his own business in the field of corporate finance. He also did not forget about his friend Andrei Kobolev, who had just been fired from Naftogaz. This is how the inconspicuous company AYA Securities LLC appeared. After 3 years, this structure thundered throughout Ukraine due to an attempt to “squeeze” 3 billion hryvnia from the creditors of the state company “Coal of Ukraine”. Skelet.Info found out how it all began.

Let’s go back to 2005. At that time, young specialists Vitrenko and Kobolev had just arrived at NAC and were learning the basics of work. The monopolist at that time worked closely with the KPSM-consulting company. It was led by a certain Vadim Ivanov from Moscow. The company officially specialized in pipeline diagnostics and highway exploration. It is impossible to really understand this area of ​​activity. But if we decipher the abbreviation “KPSM”, we get “combined porous mesh metal”. This material is truly exclusive and necessary for cleaning liquids and gases from mechanical impurities.

Vitrenko and Kobolev offer Ivanov to unite. First of all, they rename the KPSM-consulting company to AYA Capital. To hide the owners, an offshore company in Cyprus, Nestras Holding, is registered as the founder. By the way, the offshore company is registered at the same address as the offshore company of Leonid Yurushev “Bonnlack Finance Limited” (more about him: Leonid Yurushev. Secret “sponsor” of Arseniy Yatsenyuk). Then the deals are “cloned” by “AYA Capital” and created at the same legal address in 2006 by “AYA Securities”. Yuriy Vitrenko becomes the sole owner of the company and contributes 7.1 million hryvnia to the authorized capital. All other participants in the operation found themselves in the background: Vadim Ivanov became a “signatory”, and Andrey Kobolev – managing director and advisor. Yuri Yuryevich himself says that AYA Securities was created only in 2010. In fact, in 2010, unemployed Andrei Kobolev came to work at the company.

In 2013, Vitrenko and his company became famous in history with the state company Coal of Ukraine. Perhaps no other company has acted so boldly.

So, Ugol Ukrainy received loans from state banks for many years. About 2 billion hryvnia were poured into the enterprise by Oschadbank, Ukreximbank, Alfa Bank and others. Loans were issued against government guarantees. Since 2011, Ugol Ukrayiny has stopped paying loans, owing banks 1.3 billion hryvnia. The banks sued and only 2 years later they secured the arrest of the state company’s accounts. In 2013, the Ministry of Energy and Coal Industry announced the liquidation of the problematic enterprise. It became clear that no one was going to give the money to the banks. And then financial institutions receive a “letter of happiness” from the company “AYA Securities”, which offers to buy out the debts of “Coal of Ukraine” for 30% of their nominal value.

This is an ingenious scheme for converting the debt of a state-owned enterprise into private income. The amount of profit from the deal was supposed to be 3 billion hryvnia. At the same time, Yuriy Vitrenko was helped by high-ranking officials: Eduard Stavitsky, ex-Minister of Energy and Coal Industry, who signed the order to liquidate Coal of Ukraine (more about him: Eduard Stavitsky: where is the money, Eddie?) and one of the bankers close to the family of President Yanukovych.

However, the deal did not take place. Blame it all on Maidan. Kobolev and Vitrenko quickly disowned the Coal of Ukraine scheme.

Yuri Vitrenko. And again “Neftegaz”

Yuriy Vitrenko met the beginning of the Maidan in Austria at a meeting of the Ukrainian Ski Club. The news about the dispersal of students struck him to the core, and he decided to come to Ukraine. Or maybe Yuri Yuryevich realized that the time had come to realize his potential.

As soon as the government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk was formed, the position of head of Naftogaz was offered to Andrei Kobolev. He agreed, and took his boss, Yuri Vitrenko, as his advisor, at a quarter of the rate. And from that time on, reforms began.

The first thing the young Naftogaz team announced was “diversification.” This means that the range of purchased and manufactured products will expand, and the procurement and sales market will be reoriented. In Ukrainian realities, this roughly means “we will not pump gas from the aggressor country, we will find another supplier.” Kobolev said that Ukraine, represented by NJSC Naftogaz, will continue to purchase part of the volume of gas from Gazprom, and another part will be taken from the largest European concerns through reverse deliveries. As we understand, Yuri Vitrenko came up with such a brilliant idea.

The following European energy corporations began to participate in supplying Ukraine with blue fuel: E.ON, RWE, ENGINE (before rebranding – GDF SUEZ), StatOil. Unexpectedly, the TrailStone concern took first place in supplies. True, the price of gas from the supplier was clearly inflated. But they were silent about this, because the average price was within the allotted limits.

Yulia Tymoshenko was the first to panic. She stated that TrailStone is represented by Ukrainian citizen Pavel Levin, who is directly related to the management of NAC. Andrey Kobolev immediately came to the defense of the supplier. He said that the founder of the European company has been working in the gas market for 15 years.

But this turned out to be untrue. According to all data, the “official” American TrailStone was registered in 2013, and not, as Kobolev claimed, “15 years ago.” But the point is different – it is not the American, but the Berlin-based TrailStone GmbH that operates on the Ukrainian market. Data about this company in the German register of legal entities is hidden. It is only known that among its main shareholders there are residents of the Cayman Islands.

And the most interesting nuance: the German TrailStone was accredited only in 2014. So the gas trader is clearly a newbie. Another fact that requires attention. Neftegaz announced that it would buy gas from TrailStone 2 days (!!!) after it received accreditation. At the same time, not a word about the actual cost of purchases. The transactions were not subject to the government procurement law, so the monopolist did not publish their monthly volumes and prices.

TrailStone has never traded gas. She learned about her mission after Vitrenko came to Naftogaz. The fact is that Yuri Yurievich knew its director Ante Pogačić from his internship at Merrill Lynch in London. By the way, Pavel Levin, a representative of TrailStone, quit the RWE company and began working for the gas trader relatively recently… on the eve of Vitrenko’s appointment.

In 2015, Arseniy Yatsenyuk said that Ukraine would buy more gas from TrailStone. As a result, the trader takes 3rd place in terms of supply volumes to Naftogaz.

Unnoticed, Kobolev’s advisor Yuri Vitrenko becomes the development director of NAC Neftegaz. And a new scam arises. This time with the oil and gas fields of Egypt.

At the beginning of 2015, information appeared that Naftogaz may lose the right to develop oil and gas fields in Egypt due to the refusal of the State Financial Institution to replenish the authorized capital of the subsidiary of NJSC Zacordonnaftogaz in the amount of 20 million hryvnia. On the scale of an oil production project in Egypt, this is a tiny amount. Moreover, Zakordonnaftogaz has no relation to the Alam El Shawish East site, which was under threat of closure. Production is carried out by the joint venture Petrosannan Company, which was created by Naftogaz and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation. However, Yuri Vitrenko decided to develop the business, it’s not for nothing that he holds the corresponding position, and he impudently came up with the idea of ​​removing the Alam El Shawish East site from the control of Naftogaz and transferring it to Zacordonnaftogaz. Thus, a profitable business has every chance of ending up in private hands in the future. So far this situation has calmed down, but who knows how it will turn out in the future.

Yuriy Vitrenko also took part in the scandal between Andrei Kobolev and Igor Kolomoisky over a change of management at Ukrnafta and its return to state control. Let us recall that until May 2015, 50%+1 share of Ukrnafta belonged to NJSC, and 43% belonged to companies affiliated with the Privat group of Igor Kolomoisky. Although the state had a controlling stake, the company was completely controlled by Kolomoisky’s management. Vitrenko and Kobolev did not remove the management of Ukrnafta, did not appoint an acting official, and did not block the possibility of withdrawing funds from the company, but allowed Kolomoisky to take about 12 billion hryvnia from Ukrnafta from May to September 2015.

Yuri Vitrenko. Hobbies and weaknesses

If Yuri Vitrenko were not a financier, he would be an athlete. In any case, this is exactly the future that his parents, Natalya and Yuri Vitrenko, wanted for their son. As a child, little Yura was even sent to Dynamo Kiev, where he trained on the same team with Andrei Shevchenko.

These days, Yuri Vitrenko actively skis on snow-covered slopes, and also enjoys playing golf.

Yuri Vitrenko with his family

In February 2017, Yuriy Vitrenko said that natural gas prices for the population could increase by 40% from April 1. Apparently, Yuri Yuryevich again made calculations in his favor.

Arina Dmitrieva, for Skelet.Info

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