A little-known company, Star Investment Van, acquired the rights to loans and collateral from 21 banks worth over $600 million for just 0.5% of their value
Playing short or trading with a “discount” of 99.5%: several years ago, the new company “Star Investment Van” bought the loan portfolios of more than twenty bankrupt banks from the Federal Guarantee Fund for next to nothing. Subsequently, another company entered the game - WWRT Limited by Olga Gutovskaya, accused of demanding huge amounts of money from the owners of these financial institutions. Who is the “nightmare” of Ukrainian bankers? What role does one of the country's richest businessmen, Viktor Polishchuk, play in this scheme? And what does the Russian trace have to do with it?
In November 2018, Exito Partners presented the Eloria project - we are talking about a package of credit assets of bankrupt Ukrainian banks, which the Deposit Guarantee Fund of Individuals prepared for trading. In total, there were 21 bankrupt financial institutions, the loans in the case were almost $294 million, and the total value of collateral for the loans was another $367 million. One of the fattest cats, as cases are called in financial slang, of this portfolio was the notorious Mikhailovsky Bank.
According to media reports, this bank was once within the sphere of interests of Viktor Polishchuk. The latter is known as a businessman in the real estate and retail sectors. In 2021, according to Forbes, he took 36th place in the top 100 richest Ukrainians. The owner of the electronics retail chains https://www.ukr.net/news/details/kyiv/94594713.html Technopolis and Eldorado, the Gulliver shopping center, construction companies in the media is also called a close relative of the Russian Dmitry Medvedev, a former representative “Yanukovych clan” and even the unofficial “curator” of the Kiev region during the tenure of the fugitive president.
However, the most interesting thing is how exactly the auctions took place. After all, despite the fact that the total cost of the case exceeded $600 million, the lot was put up for auction for only the equivalent of $50 million. And then, according to the “Dutch system” of bidding, its value was gradually reduced - first to $11 million, and in the end - completely up to 62 million UAH, that is, approximately $2 million. Thus, the “discount” was more than 99.5%!
Such cases are not isolated, and often behind them there is a veiled “squeezing out” of assets, experts say. After all, acquiring rights to loan portfolios for next to nothing in the future allows the new owners of the case to actually “knock out” debts from bankers, including using collection firms and other dubious methods.
“There is a business, let’s put it this way... buying debts is a business of vultures. Because these people buy for one percent, two percent and even lower, half a percent. You know, to buy for half a percent, for a percentage of debts worth a hundred million, a billion. then you can sell these debts further, heal them, do something, torment creditors for these debts, etc.,” notes Valentin Zagaria, managing partner of the Spensers law firm.
But the most interesting thing is who exactly bought the lots of 21 Ukrainian banks for pennies. The buyer was Star Investment Van, registered just four days before the start of accepting bids for the first auction. It was she who, without competition, playing short, took the entire case for herself. It is noteworthy that the company’s registration address coincides with the address of the Gulliver shopping center of the same Viktor Polishchuk.
Let us recall that the figure of the little-known lawyer Olga Gutovskaya, to whose company WWRT Limited the loan portfolios that had previously been purchased for next to nothing were transferred, attracted the attention of the StopCor editors last year due to her luxurious lifestyle, aggressive PR in the media and public accusations of fraud. . Pulling this lead, our investigators reached out to Star Investment Van and uncovered new details of what was likely a fraudulent scheme to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.
