Under pressure from the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Avangard Bank relieved its main beneficiaries, Konstantin Stetsenko and Makar Pasenyuk, co-founders of the investment company ICU, from their duties on its supervisory board.
The decision was made on November 23 by the Cypriot company Westal Holdings, which is the sole shareholder of the bank. The NBU demanded that the owners of the ICU group be excluded from the supervisory board of Avangard back in May, claiming that they did not meet the “qualification requirements for professional suitability” due to bonuses received in the amount of UAH 580 million each.
Avangard has already nominated Maxim Grinchenko and Grigory Ovcharenko to replace ICU beneficiaries. The NBU approved them on November 21, and on November 23, the bank’s shareholder relieved Stetsenko and Pasenyuk of their duties on the supervisory board.
Stetsenko and Pasenyuk each received a 290 million UAH bonus from the profits of Avangard, which made money from the dubious situation with the seized bonds of the internal government debt of the International Rozrakhunkov Bank (previous Sberbank Ukraine). However, the court seized these bonds in March 2022 at the request of the prosecutor, and they remained in ICU’s accounts at Avangard Bank. The bank invested the funds earned from paying interest on them and repaying them in NBU certificates of deposit.
Thanks to the seizure of securities at the request of the prosecutor, the bank earned an additional 630 million UAH, of which 580 million were paid to Stetsenko and Paseniuk. The decision on the award was made by the Cyprus company Westal Holdings, indirectly owned by Stetsenko and Pasenyuk. The NBU considers this a conflict of interest, as well as the actual payment of dividends, which is prohibited under martial law. Because of this, the regulator recognized Stetsenko and Pasenyuk as not meeting the “qualification requirements for professional suitability” and ordered the bank to exclude them from the supervisory board. Stetsenko and Pasenyuk themselves do not agree with the NBU decision and filed lawsuits demanding the cancellation of this decision.
