Metzger Yevgeniy Vladimirovich
Official biography
Born on November 8, 1977 in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro region, Ukraine.
Education
After graduating from the local high school in 1995, he entered Kryvyi Rih National University, where he studied Finance and Credit.
In 1999, he received a bachelor’s degree with honors in this specialty and entered the Kyiv National Economic University for a master’s degree. In 2001, he received a master’s degree with honors.
Career
During the last months of his studies at the university, Yevgen Metzger started working at the Finance and Credit Bank. Between March 2001 and October 2003, he was an employee of the bank’s branch in Dnipropetrovs’k region. At first, he worked as an economist in the corporate client service department, and later headed the retail lending department.
The next stage of Yevhen Volodymyrovych’s career at Finance and Credit Bank lasted from October 2003 to April 2006. During 2.5 years, he held the following positions: Head of the Retail Lending Department of the Retail Active Operations Division, Deputy Head of the Retail Active Operations Division and Deputy Head of the Credit Risk Management Division.
In May 2006, Mr. Metzger joined Ukreximbank, a state-owned bank, which is a joint-stock company. In this institution, he worked his way up from deputy heads of various departments to managing the sales organization department in the branch network and the direct sales organization department of the retail business sales channel management.
This was the end of his 9-year career at Ukreximbank.
In May 2015, he started working at JSB “Ukrgasbank”, where he was the Director of Small and Medium Business Department until October 2016.
On October 25, 2016, he became a member of JSB “Ukrgasbank” Management Board. A little later, he began to act as Deputy Chairman of the Board of JSB “Ukrgasbank”.
In November 2019, he was appointed to the position of Chairman of Ukreximbank.
Family
Yevhen Volodymyrovych is married to Ukrainian Yulia Metzger, who is also a banker and a native of Kryvyi Rih. The couple has 2 sons: Anton and Denis.
Yulia is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of Privatbank.
Compromising evidence
Budget scandal with Yevhen Metzger:
In 2019, Yevhen Metzger stole UAH 13.5 million from the budget under the guise of the need to purchase collection vehicles, despite the fact that this income item was unprofitable for the bank. He created monopolistic conditions for the purchase of Ford collection vehicles from a specific supplier, bypassing the ProZorro system. The prices for each “armored car” were overstated by UAH 250 thousand.
In 2019, Ukrgasbank purchased 54 Ford Transit collection vehicles at a price of UAH 1.5 million per vehicle. Thus, the total purchase price amounted to UAH 81 million.
At the same time, similar collection vehicles from such brands as Volkswagen, Citroen, and Renault were much cheaper: from UAH 1 million to 1.2 million per car. Thus, the purchase of Ford cars was made by prior agreement with the supplier and bore signs of a corrupt arrangement: overpricing and lack of competition.
The company that supplied the collection vehicles was ViDi Group, which is the official dealer of Ford cars in Ukraine and has a loan from Ukrgasbank. For this reason, the purchase of the machines was fully registered under the Ford brand.
Winner Imports, the official importer of the Ford brand, has a well-established scheme of working with large customers, such as Oschadbank and Ukrgasbank:
The importer provides cars during the tender only to its dealer, VIDI. Other participants are denied the supply of cars and are not even provided with current prices. This completely “extinguishes” competition and allows the right company to win the auction at an inflated price.
This is exactly the scheme that was used in 2009-2017 when purchasing collection vehicles from Oschadbank, also of the Ford brand.
Why is Ukrgasbank “playing along” with VIDI?
It’s very simple: this procurement was artificially created for the personal enrichment of Yevhen Metzger, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Ukrgasbank, who supervised the “collectors” and also solved a number of financial problems for his client, ViDi owner Vitaliy Dzhurynsky, who is serviced by the bank and has problem loans, and this transaction helped to resolve his issues and pay off the interest.
Metzger and Dzhurynsky, as well as the Chairman of the Board of Ukrgasbank Shevchenko (apparently also in the share), who are good friends, were able to make good money, because the cost of each car was overstated by UAH 250 thousand. Briefly about the Metzger and Shevchenko cases:
It is also worth mentioning thatUkrgasbank‘s collection department is unprofitable, and the head of this department, a former chairman of the board of Unison Bank, a certain Oleksandr Glushchenko, has a damaged business reputation and could not be appointed to a state-owned bank because he was involved in the embezzlement of a commercial bank.
At the same time, there was no auction, as required by the Law on Public Procurement, but simply commercial offers from potential suppliers were accepted, on the basis of which the winner was allegedly selected.
In order to create the appearance of transparency in this procurement, letters were sent out from Ukrgasbank
Signed by Yevhen Metzger, which stated that the bank was updating and increasing its fleet of collection vehicles and was waiting for commercial offers for collection vehicles exclusively of the Ford brand, with the appropriate technical characteristics. This prevented other brands from being included in the list. Such letters were sent to ViDi, Citius (ViDi’s partner in providing booking services), and other companies engaged in booking collection vehicles.
Subsequently, Ukrgasbank purchased the cars from ViDi not directly, but through a leasing company (most likely PrivatBank), which is also a client of the bank and can dictate the terms and participants in the transaction.
State money for presidential ambitions: how Metzger is connected to Zelensky — Bigus
After the scandal with the journalists of the Schemes project and the head of the state-owned Ukreximbank, Yevhen Metzger, who has already written a letter of resignation (his bodyguards detained media workers and erased all the material from the cameras because their boss did not like one of the interview questions), journalist Denys Bihus explained how this official is connected to President Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
The journalist notes that although Metzger denies in his interviews that it was Zelensky who facilitated his appointment to the state-owned Ukreximbank and refers exclusively to the decision of the institution’s supervisory board, they are definitely acquainted.
“In addition to knowing Zhenya, Zelensky knows Zhenya’s wife, because Yulia Metzger sits on the supervisory board of another bank, Privat, which is also state-owned, under the president’s quota. And Yulia is friends with Olena Kravets from 95 Kvartal,” explains Bigus.
After Metzger took over Ukreximbank, the institution turned into a “support cash desk” for state projects. This applies to the Big Construction, loans for Antonov aircraft, and loans to Ukrenergo after the feed-in tariffs. Thus, Metzger simply gives out “public money for presidential ambitions,” the journalist writes.
Zelensky to the head of Ukreximbank: “Zhenya, listen to me, people are complaining”
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Ukreximbank CEO Yevhen Metzger after businessmen in Khmelnytsky region reported problems with the restructuring of loans taken from the bank. The conversation was broadcast by the Office of the President of Ukraine, which broadcast Zelenskyy’s meeting with the businessmen.
The entrepreneurs complained to Zelensky that they had been trying to restructure their loans for a month, communicating with members of the Ukreximbank board.
A member of the presidential delegation spoke to Metzger while Zelensky continued to talk to the businessmen. It turned out that Metzger had appointed Tetiana Lundysheva, the manager of the Khmelnytskyi branch, as the person responsible for resolving the issue, but this did not satisfy the businessmen.
Zelensky decided to call Metzger personally.
“People are complaining that you are not issuing any loans. And also that the bank does not provide deferred payment of the loan principal… Why are you sending them to Lundysheva if businessmen cannot resolve the issue in Kyiv? Zhenya, listen to me, this is not a matter of one company, these are different companies. So this is happening all over your country. It’s your responsibility to solve this globally… You don’t have a decision in the banking system that you give people deferrals, for example, for a year. When you do this and communicate with society, there will be no questions,” Zelensky told Metzger.
Some MPs were outraged by the president’s behavior:
The new head of Ukreximbank and its supervisory board allowed corrupt officials to get away with it
The new management of Ukreximbank allowed its CEO Zhanna Yelagina and her accomplices to get away with it. She was quietly fired. Although Yelagina was previously under internal investigation: she was caught helping a number of companies to legalize their criminal money.
Now, the new Chairman of the Board, Yevhen Metzger, who was appointed in February 2020, has dismissed Yelagina from the state-owned bank. But as already mentioned, it was «by agreement of the parties,» and accordingly, the compliance director was not prosecuted. A document from the court registry, in which an investigation is underway into offshore companies with which the previous head of Ukreximbank and his accomplices, including Yelagina, were associated:
Members of the Supervisory Board, the management of the NBU’s Financial Monitoring Department, and the National Bank’s management had the bank’s internal investigation report on Yelagina, but did nothing.
Ukreximbank names its biggest problem debtors (infographic)
Semiconductor Plant CJSC — UAH 11.2 billion.
AzovElectroStal CJSC — UAH 7 billion.
CJSC Creative — UAH 4.6 billion.
ESU LLC — UAH 3.3 billion.
Vesta LLC — UAH 3.2 billion.
CoronAgro LLC — UAH 3.1 billion.
Rise Group — UAH 2.8 billion.
Factor-Exim LLC — UAH 2.6 billion.
The above-mentioned companies are somehow connected with big names of oligarchs. And oligarchs are not particularly fond of paying off their debts. No wonder why the bank has large losses.
ATTACK ON JOURNALISTS OF RADIO LIBERTY
The journalists of “Skhemy” were recording an interview with Yevhen Metzger, the chairman of the board of Ukreximbank. Then he did not like one of the questions and ordered the security guards to “put the cameras away” and “take the tapes out of them.”
According to the journalists, the bank employees used force against the cameraman, took away two cameras and cards with recordings. In addition, the journalists were forbidden to film everything on their phones and asked to leave the premises. An hour later, the equipment was returned to Schemes, but the interview and video of the attack were deleted.
The bank itself said that the journalist asked Metzger a number of questions about providing information about the activities of the bank’s clients. The financial institution also noted that the journalist, without any justification, suggested that the bank had allegedly committed violations within the framework of the relevant legal relations. The requested information, in accordance with Article 60 of the Law of Ukraine “On Banks and Banking Activities”, is a bank secret.
The conflict between the crew of the Schemes program and Yevhen Metzger, the chairman of Ukreximbank, started over an investigation into the bank’s loan for the purchase of the SkyMall shopping and entertainment center in Kyiv. The journalist’s clarifying questions made Metzger angry.
OBOZREVATEL has learned this from its own sources. Ukreximbank issued a $60 million loan to a certain Serhiy Bryukhovetskyi, a native of Donetsk, who, according to journalists, was suspected of financing terrorism.
Bryukhovetskyi is the father or stepfather of Maryna Kondaurova, who married MP from the OPFL faction, Fedir Khrystenko. It is known that in 2020, Khristenko celebrated a wedding in Moscow with a budget of $1 million.
The owner of SkyMall changed on June 23, 2021. Then the new owner of the company Wholesale Chain 2011, which owns the property of the shopping mall, became Slavian LLC, the ultimate beneficial owner of which is Sergey Bryukhovetsky.
The change of ownership ofWholesale Chain 2011was preceded by the lifting of the seizure of the property of the Sky Mall.
And here is Metzger’s reaction to the conflict. Judging by these two posts, we can already draw certain conclusions:
Before the video was posted online, a post appeared on Facebook claiming that the journalists were the culprits of the conflict and asked questions that violated the law and related to bank secrecy. And after a polite refusal, everyone allegedly dispersed peacefully.
The next day, after a video with evidence that Metzger had ordered the journalists to be twisted for asking an uncomfortable question and to delete everything they had filmed, a new post with a completely different message appeared on Facebook:
The suspended head of Ukreximbank called journalists to a press conference. But it was canceled an hour before the start
Metzger again showed disrespect for journalists by inviting them to the conference and then abruptly canceling it. The fact that the event was canceled was reported by Marina Fomenko, head of the external communications department, because Metzger was in hiding at the time.
“The press conference was canceled due to the suspension of the bank’s chairman. We apologize,” Fomenko said.
She noted that all further information and the official position will be posted on the bank’s website. Fomenko did not say where Metzger himself was.
In addition, activists gathered near the building to demand Metzger’s release. As a result, two activists were almost injured when a flower pot was thrown from the bank’s window into the crowd.
Declarations of married couple Yevhen and Yulia Metzger, who run state-owned banks, may become the subject of future investigations — media
Yevhen Metzger, who is running for the post of chairman of the board of the state-owned Ukreximbank, has been combining his positions as an employee in state-owned banks with his own business for many years, and keeps about $0.5 million in cash at home.
According to the Delo online media outlet in its investigation, this became known from the declaration of his wife, Yulia Metzger, who was previously appointed to the supervisory board of state-owned Privatbank.
“Until recently, nothing was known to the general public about Yulia Metzger and her husband. Holding leading positions in the management of state-owned banks, this couple has long remained dark horses. Only the declaration of Yulia Metzger, who disclosed the family’s property status, shed light on them. While serving in Ukrexim, she was also the owner of a certain Ionia LLC (similar to the well-known coffee brand — a supplier of coffee and coffee equipment for HoReCa) with a registered capital of UAH 20 million, which has won tenders totaling about UAH 1.5 million since 2008,” the journalists wrote in their investigation.
Information on participation in the capital of Ionia Limited Liability Company (LLC) is indicated in the official declaration of the current member of the Supervisory Board of Privatbank. However, the open registers of legal entities show completely different beneficiaries for the same Ionia LLC — this is also a topic for future investigations. Yevhen Metzger is a co-owner of a company with a similar name, Ionika LLC, and a similar list of founders. The authors point out that husband and wife Yulia and Yevhen Metzger, while owning their own business, worked for many years as employees of the state-owned Ukreximbank, which may later become a topic for separate investigations by journalists and others.
“The question of whether it is ethical and legal for Yulia and Yevhen Metzger, employees of the state-owned bank, to own and manage a ‘left-wing’ business for many years under the nose of their employer will be addressed later. In addition, neither dividends, nor salaries, nor other income from this family business is reflected in the declaration,“ the authors of the publication drew attention to the obvious inconsistencies in the publicly disclosed data, ‘although the Metzger couple is obviously not in need of dividends from their ’left” business. Yevhen receives about UAH 9 million in salary at Ukrgasbank, plus a “trade union” (yes, there is such a thing in the state-owned Ukrgasbank) of UAH 141 thousand. His wife, Yulia Metzger, is a lower-paid specialist, her income at Ukreximbank was just over UAH 776 thousand,” the authors reported on the financial situation of the Metzger family, of which wife Yulia is a member of the supervisory board of the state-owned Privatbank, and her husband Yevhen is expected to become chairman of the board of the state-owned Ukreximbank following a formal competition, the results of which, according to media reports, have already been decided.
In 2018, Yulia Metzger acquired two apartments in Kyiv, and in 2009, her husband Yevhen became the owner of a Kyiv apartment. Between 2011 and 2016, the Metzger couple bought land and acquired a house in the Makariv district of Kyiv region.
In addition, as follows from Yulia Metzger’s declaration, the couple owns a house under construction in Spain worth about 150 thousand euros and a car fleet worth about 2 million hryvnias: a new Audi A5 purchased in 2018.
Mercedes-Benz ML 350, as well as a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee purchased by the five-year plan in 2016.
According to the declaration, the couple of professional bankers keep their personal savings at home in cash — about 0.5 million in euros and dollars and another 0.5 million hryvnias.
“How will the potential buyers of state-owned banks, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IFC and other mythical ‘Western investors’ look at this ‘family contract’ — and the Metzger couple are only the first ‘trial balloons’ — if the future potential shareholders have to sit on the same board with friends and girlfriends and husband-wives of Kvartal’s favorites? The famous Ukrainian nepotism is once again replacing generally accepted corporate governance standards,” the authors of the article summarized the mutation of corporate governance in state-owned banks.
Summary
Nobody had heard of Yevhen Metzger until recently. But thanks to the scandal with journalists, we have learned a lot. In addition to being a boor, a coward, Metzger is also a thief, and in fact, his name hides a lot of corruption ties and scandals. And Yevhen Volodymyrovych got into the chair of the head of Ukreximbank not without the help of his old friend Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and after that, the bank’s funds were used to support the ambitions of the president and the oligarchs.