The investment and industrial group Smart-Holding, two months after the departure of Yulia Kiryankova from the CEO position and the appointment of Ivan Gerasimovich, the chairman of the supervisory board, as the new leader, is still unable to make the necessary changes in the Unified State Register (EGRPOU) due to a court ban related to a criminal case that has been ongoing for a year and a half.
"Today, we can't even enter information about the change of management into the state register. If you go to Google now, you'll read that the CEO of Smart Holding is Yulia Kiryankova, who left the company two months ago, while the actual CEO is me. This is because the state register is blocked due to a court decision," Gerasimovich stated at the "Dialogs about the Future" event organized by the NV media group, titled "Ukraine-2050," in Kyiv on Thursday.
He clarified to Interfax-Ukraine that currently, out of 83 companies in the group's portfolio, 55 are blocked by a court decision in one of the criminal proceedings.
According to Gerasimovich, he has become the eighth leader among the group's companies that have not been able to register changes in the state register.
The CEO added that this situation leads to issues with tax invoices, the KYC process, and relationships with counterparties.
The head of the company specified that attempts to overturn the ban on such changes in the register through the courts have so far been unsuccessful due to the position of the prosecutor's office.
"We are going to court. The prosecutor comes in and says that changing the director is an asset distribution," Gerasimovich explained.
In his opinion, the criminal case itself is also dragging on, as after the first two months, activity in it has stalled, and the group is requesting to conduct investigative actions themselves.
Smart Holding is a major investment group in Ukraine, involved in sectors such as energy, metallurgy (23.76% of the mining and metallurgical group Metinvest), agriculture, shipbuilding, and real estate. It was founded by businessman Vadim Novinsky to consolidate his assets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a decree on December 1, 2022, implementing the National Security and Defense Council's decision on sanctions against Novinsky. In mid-January 2023, Smart Holding announced a change of ownership.
As reported on the holding's website: "As part of the restructuring, Smart Holding founder Vadim Novinsky decided to transfer assets into a trust. The relevant agreements, Smart Trust and Step Trust, were concluded in November 2022 and registered with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission."
At the same time, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine excluded the trusts Smart Trust and Step Trust from the register of ultimate beneficiaries, particularly for LLC "Smart Holding," LLC "Ukrgazvydobutok," and LLC "Regal Petroleum Corporation (Ukraine) Limited," reinstating Novinsky in it, while the trusts claimed that such actions were unlawful. Currently, Novinsky still remains listed as the ultimate beneficiary.