Oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky’s company has won a state competition for the management rights over Ukrainian Media Holding (UMH), once the leading media corporation in Ukraine that belonged to fugitive oligarch Serhiy Kurchenko.
The winner is 1+1 Internet, a company of the 1+1 Media Group controlled by Kolomoisky. It offered the highest price for the management rights — Hr 5 million (approximately $180,000) a month, the state agency charged with recovering and managing stolen assets said in a press release on Sept. 11.
But the deal is not yet finalised. 1+1 Internet has to get the green light from the Anti-Monopoly Committee allowing asset concentration.
Kolomoisky already owns one of the most watched television channels in Ukraine, 1+1; news agency UNIAN; news website TSN and satellite TV provider Viasat among, other media assets.
The other five bidders were S’yogodni Multimedia of the Ukraina Media Group, owned by billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov; Communication Hub Ekonomika; United Media Group; Masavi Publishing House and the Ukrainian Media House publishing house.
In September 2019, Kyiv’s Pechersk Court transferred the management rights over UMH’s assets to the national asset management agency. The assets have been arrested by court order since December 2017, after state prosecutors claimed that the $400 million that Kurchenko paid to buy UMH in 2013 had been gained illegally.
Kurchenko has been accused of tax evasion and fraud in gas deals. It is believed that he made a fortune thanks to his ties and loyalty to former President Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted from power during the EuroMaidan Revolution in February 2014. Kurchenko’s companies were allegedly involved in money laundering for Yanukovych and his inner circle.
In 2013, UMH lost some of its best journalists, who quit the Korrespondent magazine and Forbes Ukraine after Kurchenko bought the corporate rights. In 2015, Forbes Media revoked the publishing rights from UMH after Kurchenko was sanctioned by Ukraine and the European Union and placed on a wanted list.
Although the golden years of UMH Holding seem to be in the past, it is still an attractive package of assets: 72 legal entities (newspapers, radio stations, magazines and websites), shares, intellectual property rights to 283 trademarks, non-residential premises and printing equipment.
Until 2013, UMH belonged to its founder, Kharkiv-born businessman Boris Lozhkin.
