You're reading: One of last remaining critical TV stations gets new owner again

The ownership of what was considered one of the last critically-minded, independent Ukrainian TV stations underwent yet another change in shareholder structure, following the highly controversial takeover of TVi in late April.

On May 24, Factoring
Company Finance Group became the sole owner of TeleRadioSvit, the legal entity that
does business as TVi and owns the channel’s broadcasting licenses. The company modestly
rents a room inside a two-story library for blind people in Kyiv. Together with
the ownership change, TeleRadioSvit’s statutory capital increased from Hr 1,000
to Hr 540,550 ($67,500).

TVi’s new
owner Factoring Company Finance Group was established in April 2011. Co-owners
were Kyiv-based lawyer Bohdan Dankevych and Apple Finance Ltd from New Zealand.
At the end of 2011 its sole owner became London-based Credit Investbanque Plc. Its
directors are German citizens Jens Gunther and Carsten Kuster. According to
Finance Group’s financial statements, at the end of 2012 only one person worked
there – director Olha Bidna. The phone number listed in its annual report belongs
to Styling, a company registrar established by Dankevych. Its employees denied
any current links to Finance Group.

However,
Bogdan Dankevych is also known as the co-founder of Dominanta, a diversified
corporate investment fund. In 2010-2012 one of its shareholders was Tantalit,
the official owner of President Viktor Yanukovych’s palatial residence in a
northern Kyiv suburb. TeleRadioSvit’s director Artem Shevchenko did not comment
on the situation.

The ownership
change at TVi is the latest episode in the dizzying chain of corporate
structure transformations involving companies from the United Kingdom and
British Virgin Islands, power of attorney letters with disputed legitimacy, and
proxies that have plagued the channel for over a month.

Amid the turbulent
and non-transparent ownership change more than 30 journalists quit TVi, known
for its hard-hitting investigations of corruption in the top echelons of
Ukraine’s government.

In late April
Russian businessman Konstantin Kagalovsky, who was the
sole investor and beneficiary owner of TVi leading up to the takeover, was
suddenly replaced by Alexander
Altman, a little-known New Yorker born in Ukraine
. Previously TeleRadioSvit’s owner was Media Info
LLC that was controlled by BVI-based Wilcox Ventures.

At
the end of April, 95 percent of Media Info’s statutory capital was obtained by
Balmore Invest from London, whose beneficiary is Alexander Altman. He claimed the
move was enabled by a power of attorney signed by Wilcox Ventures official
director Orthodoxia Nikia. Shortly afterwards Kagalovsky and Nikia said the
power of attorney was forged.

Altman’s business track record is wrought
with debt and charges of fraud, according to an investigation conducted by the
Washington-based Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a Kyiv Post
partner.

The investigation found that Altman has
$31,000 in credit card debt and has a $3,000 unpaid car loan. He also was the
subject of several court complaints, one of which alleged he defrauded a
software company of $590,000.

Kyiv Post staff writer
Kateryna Kapliuk can be reached at
[email protected].