Will Boholyubov leave PrivatBank in the lurch? The bank may lose its collateral for billions of hryvnias

PrivatBank may lose its collateral because of the debts of the company of its former owner, Gennadiy Boholyubov. We are talking about the Borivazh terminal, which, thanks to a mortgage agreement, is being re-registered to a company related to the businessmen. As a result, instead of the terminal, which is worth billions of hryvnias, compensating PrivatBank for unpaid loans, it may return to its old owners.

Interestingly, this is not the first time that this terminal has been "rescued" from collateral through schemes. At the same time, PrivatBank itself, which could lose billions, did not actually take proper measures to prevent this. Read the OBOZ.UA article about how the state-owned bank can be deprived of billions of dollars worth of property through the new-old scheme.

How PrivatBank is being left without a terminal

The most problematic debtors of PrivatBank were inherited from the former owners Kolomoisky and Boholyubov. Among them is Borivazh LLC, which controls the grain terminal in the Pivdennyi port. The company owned the Borivazh terminal until September 27, 2016, and then it was re-registered as Agroterminal Logistic (the founder of this company is Borivazh LLC).

"Borivazh was recognized as a company related to the former owners of the bank. In addition, this is evidenced by extracts on the beneficiaries of the offshore companies for which the LLC is registered. Even before the nationalization, Borivaz received a UAH 3.5 billion loan from PrivatBank, with Agroterminal LLC as a guarantor. The loan was not repaid. Now the court has recognized a total debt to PrivatBank of about UAH 5 billion (read more about this below).

"PrivatBank has every opportunity to use the courts to have the port arrested, transferred to the management of the ARMA, and sold to pay off the debt. However, the bank risks not being able to do so in time.

Back in 2023, the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovs'k region opened a bankruptcy case against Borivaz LLC. To do so, the company had previously changed its place of registration from Odesa to Dnipro in order to "choose a convenient court," as the bank's spokesman, Oleg Serga, noted.

"This is a common practice for unscrupulous borrowers in preparation for their own bankruptcy and is almost a sure sign of it. Obviously, this is how debtors choose a court in which it is "more convenient" or "more comfortable" for them to sue their creditors," he said.

According to the general procedure, the bank expected Borivaz LLC to be declared bankrupt on August 19, 2024. Just before Borivaz LLC was declared bankrupt, a new twist in the whole story took place. On 30.07.2024, the founders of Borivazh LLC, who had done nothing for years to repay the debt to the bank, changed the managers of Borivazh LLC and Agroterminal Logistic LLC, and on 2.08.2024, the grain terminal was mortgaged. The mortgagee company is Terminal Borivazh LLC with an authorized capital of UAH 10,000. As OBOZ.UA has found out, the chief accountant of Terminal Borivazh LLC is Kateryna Romanyuk. Until March 5, 2022, she was the chief accountant of Boryvazh LLC owned by Boholyubov and Kolomoisky, according to YouControl. So, in fact, the terminal was re-registered from one company of the former owners of PrivatBank to the new ones.

This refers to the debts of Agroterminal Logistic LLC in the amount of UAH 155.5 million due in 2025 (financial assistance from another company). According to the terms of the mortgage, the value of the port is set at UAH 150 million, which is 30 times less than the debt to the bank and clearly ten times lower than the market value.

In a strange way, on August 13, 2024, the terms of the mortgage agreement were changed and a new deadline for the repayment of financial assistance was set for August 14, 2024. The only goal is to re-register the port as soon as possible as "Terminal Borivazh".

PrivatBank, for its part, filed a lawsuit with the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovska oblast to seize the port, but its application is being passed from judge to judge and is not being considered in court (case number 904/3576/24).

The scheme is as follows: now PrivatBank is left in a situation where it needs to act quickly and look for a buyer for a share in the authorized capital of Agroterminal Logistic LLC, while it has a terminal worth 5.5 billion, which covers its debts to the bank. As soon as the port becomes the property of another company under a mortgage agreement, the bank will be left with 99.9% of corporate rights, which are worthless.

Among the founders of Borivaz LLC, which actually took out the loans, are three offshore companies: AMERTANA HOLDINGS LTD, OKTALENSA HOLDINGS LTD, and ANSTREVIO INVESTMENTS LIMITED, which together own 70% of the shares.

Borivaz and its debts: why the terminal should belong to PrivatBank

This is not the first scheme with Borivazh. Until 2019, the terminal was pledged to the NBU, but, as the regulator itself stated, it was illegally re-registered and thus "saved" from the first pledge.

"A company associated with the former owners of PrivatBank, Ihor Kolomoisky and Hennadiy Boholyubov, Agroterminal Logistic, has regained ownership of the Borivazh terminal in Odesa region," the EP reported , citing the NBU's deleted page.

Finally, court decisions in case No. 904/1926/23, which were heard by the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovs'k region in 2023, show that, according to the mortgage agreement, 99.9% of the corporate rights of Agroterminal Logistic, the owner of the terminal, were pledged to PrivatBank. Therefore, the state-owned bank is to become the owner of the terminal. From the same decision, we learn that the court recognized PrivatBank's monetary claims against Borivazh LLC in the amount of about UAH 5 billion.

For context: in September 2022, the Central Commercial Court of Appeal refused to satisfy PrivatBank's appeal and upheld the decision of the Commercial Court of Dnipropetrovska oblast of 30.06.2022 (in case No. 904/1532/22), by which the state bank denied the application for securing a claim against Borivaz LLC to recover UAH 3.43 billion of debt under loan agreement No. DNHSLON06941 dated 13.12.2016 by converting the recovery into collateral - the share in the authorized capital of Agroterminal Logistic LLC owned by Borivaz LLC (as a borrower and pledgor) in the amount of 99.999955%. In its application for interim relief, PrivatBank requested the court to

- to prohibit Borivaz LLC from taking actions to alienate in any way (sale, purchase, donation, exchange, etc.) corporate rights - a share in the authorized capital of Agroterminal Logistic LLC in the amount of 99.999955% owned by Borivaz LLC;

- to prohibit Borivaz LLC as a member of Agroterminal Logistic LLC from taking any actions to change the composition of the members of Agroterminal Logistic LLC and the ratio of their shares among themselves;

- to prohibit Borivaz LLC from withdrawing from Agroterminal Logistic LLC, as well as to authorize other members of the LLC to withdraw from it.

The court did not see any threat or desire on the part of the representatives of the debtor companies to commit the above actions. This is exactly what they are trying to do. According to the excerpts, all offshore companies are owned by their former owners. Given the location of one of them, there is only one stakeholder who can pull this off - Bogolyubov. Despite the fact that he himself recently fled the country with a fake passport and apparently does not want to pay off the loan to the state. As a result, the state-owned bank may lose several billion hryvnias again.