The court refused to cancel the seizure of documents linking Pivdenny Bank to the scheme to sell the property of the Olympex terminal

The Kyiv Court of Appeal refused to cancel the seizure of documents seized during a search at Pivdennyi Bank as part of criminal proceedings over the illegal withdrawal of assets of the Olympex terminal belonging to the companies of Odesa businessmen Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko, UNN reports.

"The pre-trial investigation established that on February 13, 2023, by prior conspiracy, officials and beneficial owners of Sanolta Korm LLC, PJSC "Joint Stock Bank ‘Pivdennyi’ and LLC ‘Olympex Coupe International’, in violation of the term for fulfillment of the violated obligation specified by the Law of Ukraine ‘On Mortgage’, the illegal withdrawal of assets from the property of LLC ‘Olympex Coupe International’ was carried out before the start of the bankruptcy procedure of the company, namely at a clearly low price, the grain terminal (GTC) with a simultaneous storage capacity of up to 190 thousand tons was illegally alienated...", - it is said. tons...", - reads of the court's decision.

Last September, law enforcement officers raided Pivdenny Bank in Odesa and seized a number of documents. In particular, they seized loan agreements with companies that are part of Groza and Naumenko's GNT Group agricultural holding - Ferko LLC, Vtormeteksport LLC, Metalzukrain Corp Ltd, and Olympex Coupe International LLC. Investigators also seized a contract for the sale and purchase of grain terminal assets between the bank and Sanolta Korm LLC, asset transfer certificates  and other documents.

The panel of judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal ruled that the seized property was seized by the first instance court on a reasonable basis and refused to cancel the seizure of Pivdenny Bank.

Recall

Earlier, UNN reported that Pivdennyi Bank allegedly helped Odesa businessmen Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko to illegally re-register half of the Olimpex grain terminal in 2023 to a company controlled by them.

In November 2019, Groza and Naumenko's agricultural holding GNT Group took out a $75 million loan from an American investment fund to develop the Olympex terminal. As collateral for the loan, the businessmen transferred half of the grain terminal to the fund. They had to repay the loan by December 5, 2021. At the same time, Groza and Naumenko had to coordinate all actions with the pledged property with the lender.

Groza and Naumenko also took out a loan from a Ukrainian bank and thus tried to protect their property from the claims of the American lender. At the same time, they decided not to inform the American fund. In 2020, with the help of, among others, Ferko LLC and Vtormeteksport LLC, which are part of the GNT Group agricultural holding of Groza and Naumenko, they received a $17.5 million loan from Pivdenny Bank. The loan was secured by the same half-terminals that the Americans already had rights to.

According to the law, before issuing a loan, Pivdenny had to check the rights to the property pledged as collateral. It is prohibited to pledge property several times. 

In early 2023, Pivdenny Bank began urgently demanding repayment of the loan, which was due to expire on July 31, 2024. Groza's and Naumenko's companies received the Ukrainian bank's demand to repay the debt in January 2023 and had 30 days to comply. However, Pivdennyi, without waiting for this period to expire, which is a violation of the Mortgage Law, began the collection procedure.

At that point, there was already a court decision prohibiting the alienation of the terminal's property. In addition, all of the terminal's property was under arrest as part of the criminal case against Groza and Naumenko. But this did not prevent private notary Dmytrina T. from re-registering the ownership of the property.

"Pivdennyi sold half of Olympex for just $4.3 million to Sanolta Feed (Sunolta Group). 

After that, the property was resold once again to Attollo Granum, which is also part of the Sunolta group and was specially created a few weeks before the deal.

"Attollo Granum, for its part, pledged half of the terminal as collateral for a $130,800 mortgage to Ozirky LLC, which, according to media reports, is also controlled by Groza and Naumenko.

Thus, the property of Olympex was mortgaged three times, and Groza and Naumenko retained control over it.