The real beneficial owner of one of Ukraine’s most troubled banks, Alliance Bank, Pavlo Shcherban, is seeking to minimize risks ahead of the financial institution’s potential withdrawal from the market. In this context, the name of well-known businessman Dmytro Firtash comes into play.
Shcherban is channeling billions of hryvnias into retail trade, oil logistics, the agricultural sector, and the IT sphere, while Alliance Bank risks drowning in debts and corruption schemes linked to high-profile criminal cases of recent years.
In political circles and among active civil society, there are likely few who have not heard of the scandalous story involving Oleksiy Nosov, a partner at the law firm “Miller.” He attempted to bribe NABU detectives and SAPO prosecutors to change the jurisdiction of the case of his client, Yuliya Frolova, the former head of Alliance Bank’s board. She is on the international wanted list as a suspect in another high-profile NABU case concerning the embezzlement of state funds amounting to over 1.7 billion UAH. This case is known as the “Ukrenergo case.” The company “United Energy,” linked to Ihor Kolomoyskyi, purchased electricity from the state-owned “Ukrenergo” at the start of the full-scale invasion but failed to pay for it. According to a bank guarantee, Alliance Bank was supposed to cover the debt, but it refused to do so.
For Alliance, this is not the first instance of refusing to fulfill guarantee obligations to state structures. However, the situation with “Ukrenergo” could be decisive. Recently, the Supreme Court radically changed the practice of applying legislation on bank guarantees. As a result, Alliance will have virtually no choice but to settle the debt. The problem is that 1.2 billion UAH (the amount “Ukrenergo” is trying to recover through civil proceedings) constitutes a significant portion of the bank’s capital. In simple terms, the financial institution will have to spend heavily to pay off the debt while maintaining stability, continuing to return deposits to clients, and issuing loans. Moreover, if “Ukrenergo” wins in court, other creditors to whom Alliance also owes large sums may follow the same path.
To these facts, one should add repeated violations of NBU regulations, numerous fines for involvement in money laundering, accusations of document forgery, and a reputation tarnished by the corruption scandal involving the law firm “Miller.” All of this forms a ready set of grounds for the regulator to withdraw the bank from the market.
Most likely, realizing this, one of the key shareholders, the head of the supervisory board, and the de facto owner of Alliance Bank, Pavlo Shcherban, decided to diversify his risks and gradually transfer funds to other industries.
The authors of the material drew attention to the IT cluster being created by Shcherban, the extraction business in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, and investments in a grain elevator. However, they did not touch on an important aspect – the financial one. And it is of key importance, given the difficult situation of the bank managed by Pavlo Shcherban. Moreover, these details help understand why Shcherban delayed the concentration of over 25% of the bank’s shares, for which he had applied to the Antimonopoly Committee back in 2023.
First of all, attention should be paid to two companies where Shcherban is a shareholder and where the declared authorized capital amounts to 1 billion UAH each. These are LLC “Navium Nafta” (45172957) and LLC “Tabakos Trade” (45378245), both registered in December 2023. The activities of the first company include wholesale trade in fuel, construction of electricity supply facilities, wholesale trade in chemical products, and leasing and operation of real estate. The second company deals with wholesale trade in waste and scrap, trade in tobacco products and other goods, freight transport activities, and more.
Obviously, 1 billion UAH is a nominal authorized capital, as the companies have a year to contribute it. However, the scale that Pavlo Shcherban has outlined for himself is impressive: with a potential debt of at least 1.2 billion UAH in the “Ukrenergo” case, he plans to invest – at least on paper – 2 billion UAH in businesses unrelated to the banking sector.
Notably, Shcherban appointed Pavlo Partsevskyi as the director of LLC “Tabakos Trade.” Partsevskyi is the founder of several small trading companies, some of which win minor tenders from state clients – from supplying kitchen equipment to maintaining electrical grids. Partsevskyi also heads an online store selling drones, registered to the British offshore company EXTRA VENTURE LTD, which, in turn, is owned by a resident of French Polynesia. Interestingly, the accountant of this store is listed as Dmytro Snitsaruk. A person with the same name appeared as a contact person for the client in the Prozorro system for JSC “Cosmic Systems” – the modern name of a subsidiary of the Russian AFC “Sistema,” owned by oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov.
Another significant investment project of Shcherban is the closed non-diversified venture corporate investment fund “ALB” (JSC ZNVCIF “ALB”) (44991355), established in May 2023 with an authorized capital of 700 million UAH. According to data from the Unified Register of Enterprises and the YouControl system, the fund has invested in LLC “Alliance Digital” (45342575). This is essentially the outsourced IT department of Alliance Bank. The company is a resident of “Diia.City.”
The director of the fund is Maryna Bocharova, the wife of Serhiy Bocharov, deputy head of the board of Alliance Bank and Shcherban’s business partner. Together, they are creating an “alternative reality” for the bank’s top managers, who seek to preserve their assets when the National Bank initiates the process of withdrawing Alliance from the market. In particular, Shcherban and Bocharov are shareholders of the aforementioned “ALB” fund, IT companies developing software for banks and trade – “Monvel” and “Monvel Art,” each of which, according to financial statements, has fixed assets worth 100 million UAH. Another company, “Alliance Payment Systems,” to which the bank’s payment functionality has been transferred and which also belongs to Shcherban, has indicators of around 30 million UAH.
Clearly, the purchase of 25% of the shares of a bank that also risks liquidation is no longer on the table.
However, to “play it safe” and attempt to avoid paying debts, Alliance has initiated a controlled persecution of “Ukrenergo” management: the High Anti-Corruption Court obligated NABU to start a pre-trial investigation against the head of NEC, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, for allegedly receiving undue benefits. Details are absent from the court registry, but everyone in the banking market knows who is most interested in removing the state company’s leadership and is ready to invest significant funds in this, even after an unsuccessful bribery attempt through lawyers from the “Miller” firm.
