Alliance Bank owner Pavlo Shcherban transfers billions to Russia-linked entities

The owner of Alliance Bank, Pavlo Shcherban, is withdrawing funds from the troubled financial institution and investing them in other businesses to reduce his own risks.

In particular, Shcherban has invested billions of hryvnias in retail trade, oil logistics, the agricultural sector, and information technology, while Alliance Bank is “set to sink into debt and corruption schemes, due to which it is implicated in some of the most high-profile criminal cases of recent years.”

At the same time, some of these businesses may be linked to a Russian oligarch.

The authors of the article draw attention to two companies where Shcherban is a shareholder, each with a declared authorized capital of 1 billion hryvnias. These are LLC “Navium Nafta” (45172957) and LLC “Tabakos Trade” (45378245), both established in December 2023.

Among the economic activity codes (KVED) of the first company are wholesale trade of fuel, construction of power supply facilities, wholesale trade of chemical products, leasing and operation of own or leased real estate. The second company’s codes include wholesale trade of waste and scrap, trade in tobacco products and other goods, freight transport activities, and more.

“It is obvious that 1 billion hryvnias is a nominal authorized capital, as the company has a year to contribute it. However, the scale that Pavlo Shcherban has set for himself is clear: with a potential debt of at least 1.2 billion hryvnias in the Ukrenergo case, he plans to invest—at least on paper—2 billion hryvnias in businesses that have no connection to the banking sector,” the publication notes.

Shcherban appointed Pavlo Partsevsky as the director of LLC “Tabakos Trade,” who is the founder of several small trading firms. Additionally, Partsevsky also holds the position of director at an online store selling drones, registered to the British offshore company EXTRA VENTURE LTD, which, in turn, is registered to a resident of French Polynesia.

“Interestingly, the accountant at this drone store is listed as Dmytro Snitsaruk. A person with the same initials was mentioned as the client contact in the Prozorro system for JSC ‘Cosmic Systems’—the current name of a subsidiary of the Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s AFC Systema,” the article states.

Another significant investment project of Shcherban is the closed non-diversified venture corporate investment fund “ALB” (JSC ZNVKIF “ALB”) (44991355), established in May 2023, with an authorized capital of 700 million hryvnias. 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 IT department of Alliance Bank, outsourced. The company is a resident of “Diya.City.”

“The director of the fund is Maryna Bocharova, the wife of Serhiy Bocharov, deputy chairman of the board of Alliance Bank and Shcherban’s business partner, with whom they are creating an ‘alternative reality’ for top bankers who do not wish to lose everything when the National Bank removes Alliance from the market. In particular, together with Bocharov, Shcherban is a shareholder in the aforementioned ‘ALB’ fund, IT companies developing software for banks and trade, ‘Monvel’ and ‘Monvel Art,’ with 100 million hryvnias in each. Another company, ‘Alliance Payment Systems,’ to which the bank’s payment functionality has been transferred, is worth nearly 30 million hryvnias,” the article states.

In the authors’ opinion, these investments are the reason Shcherban refused to formally increase his stake in Alliance to 25%. Additionally, this decision may have been influenced by the scandal surrounding Alliance’s involvement in a criminal case regarding the embezzlement of over 1.7 billion hryvnias from Ukrenergo, as well as repeated failure to meet NBU standards, numerous fines for money laundering, and accusations of document forgery.

“And this is a ready-made package with which the regulator (National Bank) should remove the financial institution from the market,” the article notes.

As previously reported, Rostyslav Shurma, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, may be a “secret patron” of the small Alliance Bank, which has recently been at the center of corruption scandals. Due to his close relationship with Pavlo Shcherban, the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, Shurma is likely able to fend off “attacks” by the NBU on Alliance and provide protection for the bank before law enforcement agencies.