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bne Invest
August 2, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 6
Earlier in July, the Kyiv-based PFTS Exchange said that a stake of Prominvestbank amounting to 99.7726% had been put up for auction on August 28. The starting price of the stake
is UAH532.099mn ($2.1mn).
Last week, VEB accused the Ukrainian authorities of "expropriation" of its local subsidiary, Promin- vestbank, via "an illegal auction".
"Ukraine has chosen to fully deprive VEB of its ownership of Prominvestbank's shares," VEB's senior vice president for legal affairs Igor Krasnov said in a statement on July 22. "The formal reason for this was the decision by the Kyiv Court of Appeals, under which $140mn was recovered in favour of the Everest group of companies."
In September, 2018, the Kyiv Court of Appeals ruled that shares of the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Rus- sian state-owned banks Sberbank, VTB and VEB could be seized - following a claim filed by 17 com- panies and one person, ex-chairman of the board of nationalised PrivatBank Oleksandr Dubilet – that had lost their assets in Crimea as a result
of its annexation by Russia in 2014.
The move followed a ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague that the Russian government must compensate almost two dozen Ukrainian companies associated with close confidantes of Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky for their losses incurred as a result of the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.
A lawsuit against Moscow was filed by Kyiv- based Everest Estate, 17 other companies as well as Dubilet. According to the Hague court ruling, Russia must pay $159mn in compensation to the affected companies, as well as compensate them for the costs associated with the litigation.
According to Investohills, Volkov's major focus is on problem assets and special situations. The busi- nessman spent 10 years working for Alfa Group. Specifically, from 2006 to 2009 he was chairman of the board at Ukraine's operations of Alfa Bank.
Volkov has been working in the financial market since 1997, starting his career at the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) with a project to implement International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Ukraine's banking system. Then he worked at PWC, ING IGA.
Russian O1 Properties looks for ways to diversify and recover
IntelliNews Pro
O1 Properties, the largest developer of A-class commercial property in Moscow, plans to diversify its business by setting up a chain of co-working spaces and its own business centre management company, Vedomosti daily reported on July 29 citing unnamed sources close to the company.
The company has a portfolio of 12 business centres with a total area 0.62mn square meters, and earned $295mn in rent in 2018. O1 Properties
was part of the troubled O1 Group of Russian billionaire Boris Mints.
As reported by bne IntelliNews, O1 had a 61.2% stake in O1 Properties acquired by Cyprus- registered Riverstretch Trading & Investments (RT&I), reportedly affiliated with state-controlled Rosneft oil giant. Reports also claimed that Financial Corporation Otkritie could get 35% stake in the developer.