The Roshen Corporation has confirmed that former President Petro Poroshenko’s eldest son, Oleksiy Poroshenko, became a beneficiary of a large part of the firm.
The news was confirmed by a spokesperson for the confectionery giant who spoke with the Ukrainian news magazine Novoya Vremyaon Nov. 6.
Ukraine’s so-called “chocolate king,” Petro Poroshenko, founded the company in 1996 by merging dozens of firms that specialize in the production of sweets, biscuits and chocolate.
It grew to the largest confectionery company in Ukraine and the 27th largest candy company in the world according to a ranking by the U.S.-based Candy Industry magazine.
The same journal reports that Roshen is valued at over $800 million.
With eight factories throughout Ukraine, Lithuania and Hungary, Roshen sells 350 types of candies and snacks in 35 countries throughout North America, Europe and Southeast Asia.
The Swiss corporation Nestle, one of the largest confectionery companies in the world, offered to purchase Roshen for $1 billion in 2015, Bloomberg reported citing its sources. Poroshenko allegedly refused to sell, arguing the company was worth some $3 billion.
Roshen continues to grow. Its Kyiv factory quadrupled its net profits in 2018.
Oleksiy Poroshenko, 34, appears to have already taken control of Roshen Europe, which owns 85% of the Central European Confectionery Company (CECC).
On Nov. 6 the Center for Combating Corruption and the Open Register of National Public Figures reported that Poroshenko’s son had become the beneficiary of the company.
The Central European Confectionery Company is one of the major subsidiaries of Roshen and in turn founded many other sub-enterprises that are also being transferred to Oleksiy Poroshenko, including Roshen De Lux LLC, RoshenVolyn SE, Roshen-Volyn LLC, Roshen World LLC and others.
Former President Poroshenko remains the beneficial owner in a number of other Central European Confectionery Company controlled companies such as Roshen-Capital LLC and JSC Roshen Confectionery.
Petro Poroshenko’s hold over his company caused several scandals and criticisms while he was in office.
When he became president he promised he would sell his company but it was later revealed in 2016 that he did not relinquish his control and instead appointed Rothschild Trust as a trustee in a blind trust to hold his shares in the company.
In the spring of 2016, Poroshenko experienced one of the biggest scandals of his presidency. A leak of offshore documents, dubbed the Panama Papers,revealed that Poroshenko had established a company in the British Virgin Islands in 2014 with an intention to move Roshen’s ownership there.
He never mentioned it in his income declaration and it was suspected that he was seeking to evade taxes. Poroshenko denied wrongdoing,saying that the company’s registration was never finalized, and thus he wasn’t supposed to declare it.
In May 2019 Petro Poroshenko said that he took back control of Roshen Corporation after losing re-election to Volodymyr Zelensky becoming the chairman of the board of Roshen. He was elected to parliament in July.
