Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
PJT “Tera Invest”, founded by structures of Dnipropetrovsk businessmen Serhiy Antonov and Iryna Filipska, got lucky buying liquid papers for pennies.
On the eve of the introduction of a temporary administration at BG Bank, management sold two packages of government bonds (OVDP) with a nominal value of $4,7 million for 8,3 thousand UAH to the company “Tera-Invest” from the Perspektyva group of Serhiy Antonov and Iryna Filipska. After several resales they ended up in an investment fund from the ICU group, among whose owners was Valeriya Gontareva. This is reported in a segment by Alisa Yurchenko on the program “Nashi Hroshi” (ZIK TV channel).
The entire chain of transactions with the securities sold by BG Bank was provided to the National Securities and Stock Market Commission (NSSMC) at the request of Member of Parliament Oleksiy Mushak.
In the summer the program “Nashi Hroshi” reported that on 4 November 2014 the BG Bank disposed of OVDP with a nominal value of $4,7 million. There were no deals left in the bank with the new owner of the papers. From the NSSMC’s response it became known that PJSC “Tera Invest”, founded by structures of Dnipropetrovsk businessmen Serhiy Antonov and Iryna Filipska, got lucky buying liquid papers for pennies.
On 10 November the papers were passed on to other structures from the Antonov–Filipska group – (“Fondovyy Aktiv”, “Tsentralny Broker”), and ultimately that same day sold to the shell “Kalyna Trade”. Presumably, so as not to appear the beneficiary of the scheme, the Dnipropetrovsk parties sold the OVDP to “Kalyna Trade” also for next to nothing – 150 thousand UAH. And “Kalyna” then sold them for 70 million UAH.
Thus the main beneficiary of the scheme appears to be “Kalyna Trade”, which is mentioned in SFS materials as a “probable tax pitfall.” It was founded by Dmytro Hirnichenko, an acquaintance of Vadym Dratver, former deputy chairman of BG Bank’s management board, who carried out the OVDP sale. Fictitious companies registered to Dratver, Hirnichenko, and others figure in a number of proceedings related to granting tax benefits and converting noncash funds into cash. The conversion to cash, evidently, awaited the mentioned 70 million as well.
This amount for the OVDP was paid by the closed-end mutual investment fund ZNPIF “Investment Capital – Bond Fund” from the ICU group, co-owner of which was Valeriya Gontareva before her appointment as NBU head. Judging from the materials provided to the NSSMC, the ICU investment fund turned out to be the last owner of the papers, whose redemption took place in March and April of 2015, when the dollar exchange rate reached 22–23 UAH. Thus the fund was to earn over 30 million UAH on investments in OVDP.
Interestingly, during the deal a National Bank curator, Valentyna Dyka, was working at BG Bank; she resigned shortly after the sale of the OVDP to Tera-Invest. “Rozrakhunkovyy tsentr,” which made the payment on 4 November, states that it notified the State Financial Monitoring Service and the NSSMC about this operation. The sale by BG Bank of liquid securities for next to nothing, i.e., the removal of assets from the financial institution on the eve of the collapse, is being investigated by investigators in several criminal proceedings, however it has not yet been proven that all participants in the chain were previously informed about the scheme to withdraw OVDP.
The Perspektyva group refused to speak with journalists. ICU said it does not comment on individual transactions.
The NBU characterizes the initial operation of selling OVDP by BG Bank as “fraud.” “The indicated operation was carried out by the management of PJSC ‘BG Bank’ contrary to the requirements of the National Bank, in the absence of primary documents and grounds for its execution. As a result, significant losses were inflicted on the bank. At the NBU’s demand the bank for a long time did not provide any supporting documents regarding the execution of this operation and the corresponding justifications. As a result, on 27 November 2014 PJSC ‘BG Bank’ was classified as insolvent. The operation was conducted through PJSC ‘Rozrakhunkovyy tsentr’ in an extraordinarily short time. Documents regarding the operation were absent in the bank. The approval of this operation by the curator did not take place, and to mask the loss from it the bank on the same day revalued other assets. This was outright fraud,” said Kateryna Rozhkova, who headed the NBU’s Banking Supervision Department after the papers were removed from BG Bank.
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