TAS Group, a Kyiv-based business conglomerate owned by ex-politician and tycoon Sergey Tigipko has acquired a 14,000-square-meter stake of the Arena City business center.
Arena City in central Kyiv is an office center and a shopping mall that features luxury brands, upscale eateries and night clubs.
10,000 square meters of the purchased area is for retail space.
The seller of the property is Group DF, an international business structure owned by exiled Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, who lives in Austria and is fighting extradition to the United States where he would face accusations of corruption, which he has denied.
Participants in the deal, interviewed by the nv.ua news portal, claim that the transaction is worth $13-15 million, which was reportedly considerably lower than the initial asking price of $20 million.
The Arena City business center was on sale for about a year and it attracted a lot of bidders, nv.ua reported. Ultimately TAS Group secured the sale.
Whereas TAS Group has been on a buying spree during the recent months, Group DF has been noticed for selling its real estate assets.
In 2018, TAS purchased a business center along with an adjacent land plot located on Kyiv’s centrally located Velyka Vasylkivska Street. The group also purchased the Kuznya ship-building plant in Kyiv’s Podil neighborhood. Later Tigipko revealed his plans to develop the area of the plant both as an industrial and residential site. Back in January, TAS Group’s pharmaceutical division, TAS Pharma, has agreed to acquire the Kosmo retail chain’s pharmacy business. Tigipko also owns The Radisson Blu Podil hotel in Kyiv.
Tigipko participated in the presidential election of 2014 and finished fifth with 5.23 percent of the votes.
Prior to that he had held high political positions in Ukraine: deputy prime minister, minister of economy, chairman of the central bank, member of parliament. He was deputy chairman and member of the Party of Regions political council under then-president Viktor Yanukovych who was ousted during the 2014 EuroMaidan Revolution.
After the presidential vote of 2014 Tigipko concentrated on his business ventures.
On the sell-side, Group DF has also sold hotel Sankt-Peterburg for $15 million to Intergal-Bud at the beginning of 2019. Back in 2016 the group ceded its stake worth about $50 million in Kyiv’s Parus business center.
