ARMA handed management of Morshinska and Mirgorodska to a firm with charter capital 1 thousand UAH – EP – Center for Investigative Journalism

The Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) determined the winner of the competition for asset manager of IDS Ukraine group – one of the largest bottled water producers in Ukraine, which includes the brands Morshinska and Mirgorodska. According to the disclosed information, the winner was LLC Legal Bureau Priori tas with charter capital 1 thousand UAH. One of the co-owners of IDS Ukraine was the sanctioned Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman, whose assets were seized in Ukraine.

This is stated in the information disclosure protocol dated 23 September, writes Ekonomichna Pravda.

10 July the second stage of the IDS Ukraine asset manager selection was announced. Proposals were submitted by LLC UA Investment – 0,01% (the percentage of asset income the manager would receive), LLC Legal Bureau Priori tas – 0,9%, LLC Alliance D (final beneficiaries – Ruslan Shostak and Valeriy Kiptych, who control the national VARUS supermarket network) – 1%, LLC UA Redi-Invest – 5%, LLC Meat Processing Plant Jubilee – 10%.

14 September LLC UA Capital was disqualified for failure to provide justification of an abnormally low price. Thus the next most advantageous offer was the application from LLC Legal Bureau Priori tas.

According to YouControl, this company was founded in November 2013 by Zhanna Yefremova, who is its director (and the only employee as of 31 December 2023). The charter capital of Priori tas is 1000 UAH.

Earlier, lawyer Andrii Potyomkin, in a column for EP, stated that Priori tas sent a fake tender dossier.

"Instead of the mandatory three years of experience managing large industrial complexes, the participant provided a rental agreement for one printer, one table, and two laptops, and in other agreements it turned out to be a lessee (not a lessor) of its own office."

Moreover, documents uploaded to the Prozorro system show signs of deliberate forgery: a deal dated 2022 refers to acts from 2027, and a contract from December 2024 relies on a document that will appear only in January 2025.

In addition, the bidder is financially insolvent; its charter capital amounts to 1 000 UAH, according to OpenDataBot the net profit for 2025 year was 8 400 UAH, the firm is registered in a residential apartment, and all additional capital is two used Apple computers. This company is a priori not capable of obtaining the mandatory bank guarantee for 101,1 million UAH, the lawyer wrote.

IDS Ukraine is a bottled water producer founded in 1996. The brand portfolio includes Morshinska, Mirgorodska, Alaska, and Aqua Life. The company controls more than 40% of the Ukrainian bottled water market, by its estimates.

The group employs about 3000 people, net asset value is 4 billion UAH. Consolidated IDS Ukraine revenue in 2025 was 7,4 billion UAH versus 6,9 billion UAH the year before.

In May 2026 the ARMA announced a competition to select a manager for the IDS Ukraine group assets.

A court even in 2022 year arrested the shares and funds of Morshinska, which belonged to Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman. He was a co-owner of IDS Ukraine.

As manager of Morshinska after ARMA’s competition, in March 2023 LLC Karpaty Mineral waters became the holder of the Carpathian Spring trademark.

In April 2025 ARMA terminated the contract with the manager of the seized LLC Morshinska – LLC Karpaty Mineral waters.

In October ARMA announced that it had completed resolving the long-standing and tangled situation around the seized corporate rights of the IDS Ukraine group of companies, and that the competition would be announced very soon.

In November 2025 ARMA announced a Prozorro competition to determine the manager for the IDS Ukraine group, and subsequently canceled it.