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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The WOG network of gas station complexes is controlled by Ukrainian entrepreneurs who consolidated stakes after long disputes over the inheritance of the co-founder. The concentration of ownership determined the fate of the company that owns more than 400 stations and holds a tenth of Ukraine’s fuel market.
From oil trading to a national network of gas stations
According to the publication NaftoRynok, the key control over the WOG chain is currently concentrated in the hands of entrepreneur Serhiy Lahur and Svitlana Ivakhiv. The concentration of shares between the two business partners ended a long period of reform after the company was founded by the Continium business group.
In total, the fuel giant covers more than 400 gas station complexes, dozens of oil depots, and holds about 10% of the entire retail fuel market in Ukraine. For drivers and business, this means that the stability of fuel supply and pricing at every tenth station in the country directly depends on internal decisions of two private owners.
The history of WOG began in 2000, when the Continium group opened its first gas station in Volyn. Its co-founders were Ihor Yeremeyev, Stepan Ivakhiv, Serhiy Lahur, and Petro Dyminsky, who started with wholesale trading of raw materials.
Interestingly! Later Petro Dyminsky gradually reduced his stake in the company, focusing on media and the Karpaty football club, and sold his share even before 2015. After the death of Ihor Yeremeyev in 2015, the business found itself on the verge of a large inheritance division.
Court battles around the offshore trust
Yeremeyev’s stake ended up inside a complex trust structure in the British Virgin Islands. A trust is a legal mechanism where property is transferred to a trustee to manage for the benefit of others, often complicating direct access of real heirs to money and control of the company.
As widow Tetyana Yeremyeva told NBV Business in an interview, the trust was created for a term of 360 years, through which the businessman’s children lost real influence over the company.
The trust’s beneficiaries have no influence over the assets, the company’s activities, or income generated from the assets. By the way, there is absolutely no funds in the trust’s account—zero!
— Tetyana Yeremyeva, widow of the founder.
Although Continium Group’s assets in court materials were estimated at 600–800 million dollars, the late founder’s family did not receive dividends. Later the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine approved the buyout of shares in the holding by partners, and Yeremeyev’s children exited the official list of beneficiaries.
Who shapes the company’s policy today
According to data from the analytical system YouControl, the company was divided equally between Serhiy Lahur and Stepan Ivakhiv. Later the latter’s stake was transferred to his former wife Svitlana Ivakhiv, who now, together with Lahur, makes all strategic decisions.
Today WOG remains one of the three largest fuel importers in the country, while restructuring debts to banks and optimizing the network by selling individual gas stations in regions.
By the way, we wrote that Uklon was founded by four Ukrainians: Dmytro Dubrovskii, Viktoria Dubrovska, Vitalii Dyatlenko, and Serhiy Smus. Uklon began operating in Kyiv in 2010, and the preconditions for the service appeared several years earlier.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Мільйонні активи та траст на 360 років: хто насправді володіє мережею АЗС WOG". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Channel 24.
