Tantalit LLC, which is renting 127 hectares of President Viktor Yanukovych’s Mezhyhirya palatial presidential estate, will soon get a new owner.
Instead of a
bewildering number of proxies, as is currently the case, Tantalit will be controlled
by pro-presidential Party of Regions lawmaker Serhiy Kliuyev, the president’s
close ally. The purchase price was Hr 146 million, according to Kliuyev.
There is
speculation that the transfer may be motivated by the desire of Mezhyhirya’s
owners to save the property, since the founder and previous director of
Tantalit was sentenced to prison in Austria. The court in Austria on April 5
sentenced Johann Wanovits, 54, the founder and director of Tantalit, to five
years in prison for his role in manipulating the share price in Telekom
Austria.
Yanukovych has never explained to the satisfaction of much of the public or his political critics how he was able to gain control of a multimillion-dollar former state residence. Mezhyhyria has become a leading symbol of what critics say is deeply embedded corruption in the Yanukovych administration, accusations that the president has consistently denied.
Yanukovych says he only owns a modest home on 1.76 hectares inside the estate. He says he doesn’t know who really owns the rest of the grand compound which includes a horse stable, a five-story mansion, man-made ponds, an extravagant boathouse, an 18-hole golf course, a helicopter landing pad, as well as other amenities that are enclosed behind a 6.5 meter high perimeter wall. The suspicion is that Tantalit LLC is a front for Yanukovych’s family, an accusation also denied repeatedly by the president.
At the end
of August, Kliuyev asked the Antimonopoly Committee to allow him to buy 100
percent of Tantalit LLC. Although the committee has not yet published its
decision, officials are unlikely to refuse.
According to Kliuyev, he has known details of the project (Tantalit
and Mezhyhirya) since 2007. Kliuyev says that Tantalit’s
previous beneficiary was Ihor Humeniuk, a Donetsk-born businessman, who recently
bought Donbasenergo power company with a help of newly
created EnergoInvest Holding. However, its official owner is
Netherlands-based offshore with the same name. This
year Humeniuk decided to quit Tantalit and Kliuyev made a decision
to buy the company.
“I
met with Viktor Fedorovych (Yanukovych) and said that there was a
desire to sell from one side, and desire to buy from another side. There
was no negative reaction (from Yanukovych) and he said he would be
happy to have such neighbor,” Kliuev told. The contract was signed on Aug. 22.
Kliuev
paid Hr 146 million for 100 percent of Tantalit. He says it is mostly
his own money and also a loan from Ukrpidshypnyk enterprise. In Mezhyhirya he plans to develop the infrastructure, build houses and then sell them.
Kliuyev,
with his brother Andriy — the secretary of the National Security and Defense
Council — controlled Ukrpidshypnuk enterprise. Now the company is owned by
Austrian SLAV
Handel, Vertretung und Beteiligung Aktiengesellshaft Serhiy Kliuev was one of the
firm’s board of directors in 2002-2005.
Some also believe the Kliuyevs
control the biggest Ukrainian alternative energy producer Activ Solar, charges they deny. In 2008, SLAV was Activ Solar’s owner. In 2009, it was
replaced by Liechtenstein-based P & A Corporate Trust.
Tantalit’s
purchase is not the first real estate transaction reportedly involving Kliuyev
and Yanukovych. According to a Ukrainska Pravda investigation, Kliuyev in 2008
he bought Yanukovych’s flat in Kyiv for the inflated price of $7 million.
Tantalit,
however, is a more attractive acquisition. According to Forbes Ukraine, in 2011
company’s revenue increased by 19,000 percent – from Hr 9 million to Hr 1.7
billion. It is unknown how exactly the mysterious company makes money. The most
famous fact about Tantalit is that the company officially leases 127
hectares of the 140-hectare Mezhyhirya territory, where Yanukovych officially
rents only 1.76 hectares of the land.
According to media reports, Tantalit belongs
to Austrian Euro East
Beteilungs GmbH. The Austrian firm is owned by UK-based Blythe (Europe) Ltd. One of the last
companies in this offshore chain is P&A Corporate
Services Trust from Liechtenstein — the same
company that owns Activ Solar, linked to the Kliuevs in media reports.
There’s
also one another detail that connects Mezhyhirya’s owners and the Kliuyevs. The
director of Euro East Beteilungs GmbH is Wanovits. He
prepared Kliuyevs’s Slav AG for listing on the Vienna stock exchange in 2001.
“Except the reputational
losses for Yanukovych, Wanovits’s further participation in the scheme was
problematic – he physically would not be able to send reports to Austrian
regulatory authorities about Tantalit’s owner,” Ukrainska Pravda deputy chief
editor Serhiy Leshchenko wrote in his blog.
Kyiv Post staff writer Kateryna Kapliuk can be reached at [email protected].
