A former owner of nationalised PrivatBank, Ihor Kolomoyskyy, has said that he is fully entitled to claim a stake in its capital. He was talking to journalists on the sidelines of the 16th Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting organized by Viktor Pinchuk in Kyiv.
In his words, he has three demands concerning PrivatBank. The first one is that "any allegations against me should be withdrawn". The second one is "those who did all that should be brought to account".
"And the third one: let them pay me," he added.
He noted that there had been 2bn dollars in PrivatBank and that he was ready to exchange this capital for PrivatBank's shares.
"I admit that the state issued new shares worth 155bn or 160bn. Give me back my shares worth 60 out of 200bn. And we will co-exist," he said.
The state decided to nationalize PrivatBank on 18 December 2016. The state received 100% of its capital and had to capitalize the bank for an additional 116.8bn hryvnyas. In late June 2017, the cabinet decided to capitalize the bank for an additional 38.5bn hryvnyas on the proposal of the National Bank and the conclusions of an independent auditor, EY.
The former owners of PrivatBank are suing the state over the bank's nationalization.