The recent events surrounding the Gulliver shopping and office complex in the capital have caused widespread resonance. History demonstrates how state assets are lost not due to objective economic difficulties, but due to opaque mechanisms with signs of raiding.
The complex ended up in the ownership of the state-owned Oschadbank and Ukreximbank after many years of debt restructuring. The amount involved was about $500 million. The owners offered another way – a financial leasing mechanism, which would allow for the gradual repayment of the entire debt to the state. This option guaranteed 100% payments, but it was unexpectedly rejected.
Instead, state-owned banks effectively “seized” the asset overnight and soon announced their intention to sell it. However, the current market valuation of the complex is only $130 million. This means that the state will receive four times less than the amount of the debt and will actually lose at least $370 million (15–18 billion hryvnias).
The Gulliver scandal directly echoes the activities of ARMA – the Asset Tracking and Management Agency. The body, created for the transparent management of seized property, has actually turned into a mechanism for the redistribution of profitable assets. We are talking about fictitious auctions, the transfer of property to “their” structures for management, and disregard for legal procedures.
The Gulliver shopping mall was already under the control of companies affiliated with the actual owner of the complex, businessman Viktor Polishchuk. This creates the impression that the current "renovation" may be just another attempt to transfer the facility into the right hands.
Certain facts indicate large-scale abuses in the management of the complex. In 2019–2021, Gulliver's management purchased non-existent goods and services, effectively evading taxes. The state lost more than 146 million hryvnias, criminal proceedings were opened, but the schemes continued to operate.
As a result, the situation with Gulliver became another example of how profitable state assets are turned into a source of losses. Instead of actually repaying debts to the budget, the country may lose billions of hryvnias, and control over a strategic object will be gained by a narrow circle of interested parties.
