An electronics scandal is unfolding in Ukraine.
The case concerns the well-known Eldorado chain and its owner Viktor Polishchuk.
For those who don’t know, this is the same Polischuk who owns the scandalous Gulliver shopping center, who bankrupted Mykhailivskyi Bank and who tried to smuggle three Rolls-Royces out of Ukraine in the first days of the war (which were detained by the DBR at the border).
And there is also the story of how in 2013, Polishchuk took control of the land of the unique State Enterprise «Radio Transmission Center» of the Ministry of Defense in Brovary, and on the eve of the Russian attack, turned an important military facility into another block of high-rises.
And I think everyone knows that Polischuk’s wife is the niece of the wife of Dmitry Medvedev, the dreamer of nuclear war.
In short, Polishchuk is a large-scale person, and his style of work is clear.
Now to the essence of the Eldorado topic.
In a nutshell, this network, represented by their main legal entity, DIESA LLC, has been «throwing» all suppliers in the electronics market for money.
Over the past two years, they have accumulated more than 2.5 billion hryvnias in debt to almost 300 suppliers.
Since the end of 2022, they have almost stopped paying their bills, explaining it as a factor of the war.
At the same time, the stores were open, and money was dripping into the company’s accounts.
For some debts, Polishchuk personally acted as a property guarantor, so the goods were shipped to them further.
But when the creditors calculated the debts, they realized that they were simply being abandoned. They went to court to declare Eldorado bankrupt.
This recognition entitles the creditors to introduce an insolvency officer to Eldorado and gain access to all documents of DIESA LLC.
And Eldorado is very much afraid of this, because access to the documents may expose the artificiality of the problem of debt repayment, which could lead to criminal liability for both the management and the owner, Mr. Polishchuk.
The creditors have a strong suspicion that the creditors’ money was stupidly withdrawn by Polishchuk, including for the construction of a scandalous residential complex in Brovary.
That is, the «dumping» of suppliers may be intentional.
But it is impossible to prove this without declaring bankruptcy, so before the court had time to consider the bankruptcy, Polishchuk’s company came up with a beautiful scheme to avoid it.
The scheme is called «Application of the pre-trial rehabilitation procedure».
In fact, it is an amicable settlement.
The debtor offers creditors a format for repaying debts, and if they agree to it at a meeting of creditors, the bankruptcy proceedings are canceled.
And DIESA LLC held such a meeting.
The proposed amicable settlement concept looked like this:
Eldorado pays only 30% of the debt, and that within 5 years.
40% would be paid after the recovery of damages from Russia, and a third of the debt would be forgiven by the creditors.
For real creditors, this proposal came as an unacceptable surprise.
It turned out that half of the loan debt was owed to companies related to Polischuk. In fact, they are fictitious.
But since such creditors have no right to vote for the «reorganization,» these loans were formally sold on the eve of the meeting.
On September 1, 2023, two lots of claims to DIESA LLC were sold
TECHENERGOTRADE LLC for UAH 874 million.
EUROBETON LLC for UAH 200 million.
They were bought by FC FACTOR PLUS LLC for only UAH 4.2 million. A billion was sold for 4 million!!!
Thus, FC FACTOR PLUS LLC became the representative of 46% of the total debt at the shareholders’ meeting, which received the right to vote and fully supported the «settlement» on terms unfavorable to real creditors.
Their vote was joined by several other creditors, who together gave more than 50% of the votes required to approve the «out-of-court reorganization».
The real creditors filed a complaint about manipulation at the meeting and went to court with numerous facts of violations by DIESA LLC.
And this is only the beginning of this business fraud story.
In a few days, I will post a video from this meeting, where Polischuk is directly demanded to answer for the business abandonment in the war and proves that the problems in Eldorado were created artificially.