You're reading: Audit results shed light on Oleksandr Yanukovych’s assets

 

President Viktor Yanukovych's son Oleksandr is coming up in the world. His MAKO Group of companies was assessed by international auditor PwC as having $212 million in assets in 2011, grossing $663,000 from sales. 

Consisting of 16 enterprises located in Ukraine, Switzerland
and the Netherlands, MAKO, or Management Assets Company,  whose majority
shareholder is Oleksandr Yanukovych, announced the company’s financial results
for 2011 on Feb. 20, following a consolidated audit conducted by PwC using
International Financial Reporting Standards.

A MAKO press release noted the group paid more than
$2.6 million in taxes to various state, regional and local budgets, and
employed some 700 people in 2011.

It added that MAKO Group’s management “is currently
taking active measures to strengthen its corporate governance, financial
function, legal structure, as well as to ensure greater transparency.”

“We follow the principles of transparency and aspire
to build a world-class company,” said Oleksandr Yanukovych in the press release.

He continued:
“This is why we are actively introducing the best business standards at our
companies and publicly disclose the information about our operational results.
This is the first time we are publishing our key figures from our financial statements…We
intend to continue this practice in the future.”

MAKO Group is primarily
involved in property development and construction, banking, and according to a
Swiss media report and Ukrainska Pravda, the export of high-grade coal.

A trained dentist by trade,
Oleksandr Yanukovych, 39, was a virtually unknown businessman on the national
scene just three years ago. However, he has reportedly ammased
tens of millions of dollars since his father Viktor Yanukovych became
president in 2010. Through Geneva he is selling thousands of
tons of coal each day, Swiss newspaper Le Matin wrote on Jan. 12.

After
first appearing in the 200 most influential
Ukrainians ranking in 2010, placing 21st, he is now
number three in the country, according to
Ukrainian weekly Focus. In June 2012, Korrespondent magazine assessed Oleksandr Yanukovych’s net worth at more than $100 million. Forbes Ukraine says
companies linked to President’s senior son won government tenders worth more than $1
billion
in 2012.

Forbes Ukraine also reported
that companies linked to Oleksandr Yanukovych in 2012 at no cost took
over majority stakes worth an estimated
$10 million in five coal enrichment plants
from the state.

In past responses to Kyiv Post
requests for comments, Oleksandr denied ever competing or bidding for government
public procurement contracts, taking part in government privatizations of state
assets, or being involved in the extraction of natural resources.

“Thus, the
aforementioned material contained in the journalistic material’s
(written by Forbes Ukraine) allegations are
baseless and are likely to
have as their main purpose to discredit in the eyes of the public the acting President
(of Ukraine),” Oleksandr Yanukovych told the Kyiv Post in an earlier response.

Online news
portal Ekonomichna Pravda reported in late 2012 that his All- Ukrainian Development Bank (UDB)
had grown 13-fold in two and a half years. According
to the central bank, UDB had $325 million in funds as of July 1, making it the
65th largest bank in Ukraine. First Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov’s mother,
Valentyna Arbuzova, heads UDB.

According to the Le
Matin article of Jan. 12
, citing the head
of the board of Oleksandr Yanukovych’s Swiss-registered MAKO Trading SA,
American citizen Felix Blitshteyn said, “MAKO Trading is a coal trading company
belonging to Oleksandr Yanukovych. It was my idea, I saw that there was a niche
in the Ukrainian coal export sector.”

The Swiss newspaper wrote that
Oleksandr Yanukovych likes yachts, but isn’t flashy in Geneva: “He does business
discretely out of a nine-storey building housing
several diplomatic representations near the
Intercontinental hotel. That’s where MAKO Trading SA was registered in November
2011, according to the commercial registry. But the company does not seem
interested in communicating. No telephone number is provided, and no hint of a
website. The name MAKO Trading does not appear anywhere in the building.”

The Swiss company
currently only trades anthracite coal from Ukraine, Le Matin wrote.

“At
present we do not deal with very big amounts, just 40,000 to 50,000 tons each
months” of anthracite coal, Le Matin cited Blitshteyn.

The Swiss newspaper’s conservative
estimate is that the company makes $5 to $6
million in sales per month. The Swiss subisidiary currently employs three people, but plans to expand to other types of coal.

Oleksandr
Yanukovych “has enjoyed one of the fastest
growth of wealth in the world,” Wojciech
Kononczuk, an analyst at the Warsaw-based Center for Eastern Studies,
told Le Matin.

Kyiv Post editors Mark Rachkevych and Jakub Parusinski can be reached at
[email protected] and [email protected] respectively.