How Brodskyi’s business writes off debts for pennies and profits from a government loan

How Brodskyi’s business writes off debts for pennies and profits from a government loan

This concerns the enterprise "Velta" owned by Andriy Brodskyi, which is engaged in the development of the  Berezulivske and Lekarivske titanium ore deposits in the Kirovohrad region. In 2011, the company built a mining and processing plant for the extraction of ilmenite and zircon ores on a loan of 170 million dollars from the Russian branch of VEB in Ukraine «Prominvestbank» secured by all property.

After 2022, the state nationalized the assets of «Prominvestbank», which were transferred under the control of the Deposit Guarantee Fund. All proceeds from its assets, including loan repayments, were supposed to be directed to a special state budget account. At that time, "Velta" had an outstanding debt of 5.7 billion hryvnias! This is about a loan that not only was not forgiven but was also serviced by a profitable export-oriented enterprise.

Meanwhile, the Deposit Guarantee Fund reached a debt restructuring agreement with Brodskyi, reducing the interest rate to 0.1% per annum.

The state is under-receiving at least 1 billion hryvnias annually. And this is only in terms of interest for 2023–2025. In fact, this is concealed business financing.

It gets even more interesting. In 2018, «Velta» sold one of its special permits (Lekari deposit) to the benefit of LLC «Decart Minerals» from Dnipro. At that time, the company was managed by Oleksiy Tsarapkin, and the director was the aforementioned Andriy Brodskyi.

After nationalization, rights to claim part of «Prominvestbank»’s credit portfolio amounting to 17.5 million dollars were purchased by the company «Macrolex», managed by Oleksiy Tsarapkin. He previously headed «Decart» and was associated with the current company «Velta Minerals». The claim rights were purchased for 3-10% of the nominal debt value. Case №904/743/22 is already being considered in the Dnipropetrovsk region court, within which Tsarapkin-Brodskyi companies may formally register themselves as creditors for the amount of 800 million hryvnias. This means they could either receive this amount from "Velta" itself or retain control over the debt obligations.

The state, through the Deposit Guarantee Fund, restructures the loan at a minimal rate, losing hundreds of millions of hryvnias annually. Meanwhile, an affiliated structure purchases the same debt for a pittance and claims the full amount back into its own pocket.