Megabank, Russian casino 1XBET and missing billions of UAH from Turboatom

Despite the war, the domestic banking sector continues to make money on various transactions. And most of these schemes are in one way or another connected with the transformation of public funds into private ones. The most famous and popular ways to earn money are, of course, NBU certificates of deposit and Ministry of Finance government bonds. However, money from state-owned enterprises also “goes well,” and if the owner or beneficiary of a bank (even a bankrupt one) is also the head of a state-owned enterprise...

So, right now the state strategic enterprise Turboatom (not so long ago received a new name - Ukrainian Energy Machines) is losing 1.4 billion UAH, which are stuck in the bankrupt Megabank, associated with the general director of the state company Viktor Subbotin. At the same time, the owners of the financial institution are literally “through closed doors” trying to hide the most valuable balances of assets from the state - without disdaining the services of Russians associated with the 1XBET online casino!

The Turboatom plant is one of the world's largest turbine manufacturers. It also provides equipment to Ukrainian nuclear, thermal and hydroelectric power plants, which means it is critically important for the energy and security of Ukraine as a whole.

Despite all the upheavals and decommunization, for more than 16 years (since 2007!) “Turboatom” has been led by Viktor Subbotin, a Soviet-style leader and a typical “red director”. They say about such people: “they survived three presidents, eight governments and a revolution.” And soon he has a chance to survive the war...

For strategic enterprises, such “stability” may be beneficial. But in the case of Subbotin, the situation got out of control.

Although he was unable to privatize Turboatom (as pro-Russian collaborator Vyacheslav Boguslaev did, for example, with the Motor Sich plant), he still did not forget about himself: the largest minority owner of Turboatom shares is Megabank, which belongs to Subbotin. And although the majority owner of the plant’s shares is the state, there is almost no doubt that Mr. Subbotin’s influence on the enterprise is very significant.

The significance of the influence is confirmed by the fact that it was through Megabank that the plant carried out transactions worth billions of hryvnias and kept hundreds of millions on deposits. At the same time, as the media reported, in 2007, interest on deposits in hryvnia amounted to more than a modest 3% per annum, and in foreign currency - generally from 1 to 4% (other banks paid many times more). And in 2012, as investigators found, under the terms of the agreement between Turboatom and Megabank, the deposit rate was set at 15%, while the weighted average interest rate of the NBU in the region was 22%.

Thus, Megabank and its owners made money from the plant. Although Megabank, of course, said that they always worked with Turboatom exclusively on market conditions.

In June 2022, Megabank was declared insolvent. The bank's management hastened to blame everything on a full-scale war, but, as the media reported, problems in the institution arose long before it. Despite this, the owner of the bank, Viktor Subbotin, persistently stored Turboatom’s money in his accounts. In total, he imposed 1.4 billion UAH. This money will most likely be lost.

This is confirmed by the failed auction of the Deposit Guarantee Fund. On September 13, the fund tried to sell the assets of the bankrupt Megabank - the rights of claim under 105 loan agreements, the security of which was transferred to residential (rented apartments and unfinished buildings) and commercial real estate, in particular a cinema and a grain elevator in Kharkov and the region. But not a single buyer was interested in this - even though the price during the auction decreased from UAH 2.2 billion to UAH 436.7 million. Therefore, the chances that Turboatom will receive at least something from Megabank are scanty.

Turboatom’s previous “successful” experience of working with banks also adds to the pessimism. As Schemes reported in their investigation, during Yanukovych’s presidency, Turboatom kept $5 million in Alexander Yanukovych’s All-Ukrainian Development Bank; $10 million and UAH 26 million in Pervy Bank, associated with Artem Pshonka; more than $1 million in Golden Gate Bank, affiliated with Mikhail Dobkin and Gennady Kernes. When these banks were declared insolvent, Turboatom lost $20.28 million and UAH 45 million.

By the way, the story about losses and schemes at Megabank does not end there. Thus, the General Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine stated that the owners of Megabank tried to sell real estate owned by the bank to Russians. The scheme was carried out with the help of a non-resident company owned by a Russian associated with the Russian bookmaker 1XBET. Money to the bank accounts of the non-resident company came from Russian and Belarusian banks.

According to the SBI, we are talking about Sia Royal Pay Europe LLC. This structure is connected with Russian business, and sanctions have been imposed against it by the National Security and Defense Council. In general, more than 30 million euros were taken during transactions with Megabank premises. The stolen property was seized and will be transferred to the Deposit Guarantee Fund.

But if anyone thinks that after this Subbotin should have been wary of investigations and court cases, then he is mistaken: Subbotin continues to manage Turboatom and also helps Mark Becker, with whom he worked together in the bankrupt Megabank, get onto the supervisory board. . In fact, Subbotin employs his accomplice, with whom he brought Megabank to bankruptcy, into the state company from which he has already withdrawn money.

War is not the time when you should turn a blind eye to such actions of a top manager of a strategic state enterprise. After all, most likely it is Subbotin who is behind many other schemes and scandals that have arisen in recent years around Turboatom, because it is difficult to imagine that significant financial transactions passed by the attention of the head of the enterprise. Perhaps law enforcement should pay attention to this?