Makar Pasenyuk’s ICU: Staff for Poroshenko, Sberbank Money and Burger King in Russia
Some people rarely make the news, but every time they do, it is in a new role. One moment beside Petro Poroshenko and Valeria Gontareva, the next in scandals involving the NBU, then next to billions sitting in a frozen account of Russia’s Sberbank, and then… next to the Burger King restaurant chain in Russia. To the general public the name means little. But for those who follow financial markets and banking regulation, the name Makar Pasenyuk sounds as mundane as “next till, please”: one of the country’s most influential investment bankers and co-owner of the Investment Capital Ukraine (ICU) group.
At first glance, these stories have nothing to do with one another. But lay them out in chronological order, and the random episodes form a system. Or, if you like, Makar Pasenyuk’s personal signature: working right at the edge of the law, where big money meets politics and, it seems, gets along with it splendidly. All with a faint whiff of “the Russian spirit”…
But first things first. Like on a menu.
ICU: Petro Poroshenko’s “talent forge”
ICU was founded by Valeria Gontareva and her husband in 2006. In 2009, Makar Pasenyuk joined the team. Wicked tongues say it was not without family patronage: Pasenyuk is the son-in-law of Vira Ulianchenko, who was called President Viktor Yushchenko’s “nanny”. That very year she became head of his Secretariat, having previously run the Kyiv Regional State Administration. Coincidence? Of course it is. Everything here is a coincidence.
Today the company describes itself as “an independent investment group providing brokerage services, depository services, asset management and private equity services, and also engaged in venture and fintech investments”. Modest, even a little dull. Back in 2009, though, things were more fun: ICU began serving Petro Poroshenko’s business interests. And when Petro Oleksiyovych moved to Bankova Street in 2014, ICU turned into something like a recruitment agency with VIP service. Valeria Gontareva became Governor of the National Bank. Oleksandr Zhyvotovskyi, head of ICU’s investment department, became chairman of the National Commission for State Regulation of Communications and Informatization. Dmytro Vovk, ICU’s vice president for corporate finance, took over NEURC, the energy and utilities regulator — and it was under his leadership that the notorious “Rotterdam+” formula was approved. But that is a mere trifle.
And for those who did not fancy public service, there were cosy jobs at ICU’s pocket bank, JSC Bank Avangard. Its ultimate beneficial owners are still Makar Pasenyuk and his long-time partner Kostiantyn Stetsenko. Corporate culture: we never leave our own behind.
Source: YouControl
Sberbank’s money, or How to profit from someone else’s asset freeze
ICU’s loudest story came after the full-scale invasion. When martial law was introduced, MR Bank (formerly Russia’s Sberbank) still held UAH 26.9 billion in highly liquid assets. Of these, about UAH 9 billion were domestic government bonds (OVDPs) and UAH 1.5 billion were NBU certificates of deposit. These UAH 10.7 billion were supposed to end up in special state accounts. Instead, they got “stuck” at ICU and Bank Avangard, which serviced the transactions. The deal was described in detail back in 2023 by Dzerkalo Tyzhnia (ZN.ua).
The mechanics are as simple as a burger. Oleksiuk, a prosecutor at the Podilskyi District Prosecutor’s Office, asked for these funds to be frozen, and Judge Anokhina granted the motion. Formally, the freeze only prohibited disposing of the securities. In practice, however, the Finance Ministry dutifully redeemed the bonds, and ICU put the proceeds into NBU certificates of deposit at 23% per annum. The result: UAH 850 million in earnings. An asset freeze that generates income — not even Wall Street has come up with that financial instrument.
The situation was almost surreal: a freeze was imposed on property that de jure already belonged to the state, yet for some reason it sat not in an NBU account but in the accounts of a private company. In December 2022, the Kyiv Court of Appeal finally upheld the freeze as lawful, with no right of cassation appeal.
The cherry on top: Bank Avangard used part of the 2022 income from this operation to pay bonuses to Pasenyuk and Stetsenko — UAH 580 million between the two of them. Spin the money yourself, write yourself a handsome bonus. Effective management in its purest form.
The NBU appreciated the creativity in its own way. In May 2023, the National Bank found that Pasenyuk and Stetsenko did not meet the qualification requirements for professional suitability, and in November it forced them off the bank’s supervisory board. At the same time, the Cabinet of Ministers, through the Ministry of Justice, went to court to recover almost UAH 2.2 billion from Avangard, ICU and personally from Stetsenko and Pasenyuk for the delay in transferring the frozen assets to the state.
In spring 2025, the Cassation Administrative Court of the Supreme Court upheld the NBU’s decision that Makar Pasenyuk did not meet the qualification requirements for professional suitability. So it is no longer just the regulator’s opinion — it is the position of the Supreme Court.
A burger with a taste of the “Russian world”
This story involves no state money, but it has a distinct “Russian smell”. It began in 2018, when Crimea had already been annexed and the anti-terrorist operation was under way in Donbas. That year Xomeric Holdings, a Cypriot company linked to ICU that already owned 18.4% of Burger King Russia (a chain of more than 800 fast-food restaurants across Russia), bought another 16.62% from an entity of the Russian state bank VTB — and became the chain’s largest shareholder.
The deal was worth RUB 4.6 billion, or roughly USD 75 million at the 2018 exchange rate (!). Quite a combo meal.
Source: Vedomosti
Once more, slowly. The deal took place in the fifth year of the war in Donbas and the occupation of Crimea. In other words, Makar Pasenyuk — a man whose very profession as an investment banker is about assessing political risk — deliberately increased his investment in Russian business by buying a stake from an entity of the aggressor state’s own state bank. Apparently the risks were rated “tasty”.
And no, this was not some “legacy asset that just happened to be left over and needed to be disposed of”. Pasenyuk deliberately ordered a double Russian “patty” — after the “little green men” in Crimea, and Strelkov-Girkin together with militant commanders like “Motorola” and “Givi” in Donbas, had turned political risk into bloody reality.
After the full-scale invasion, owning a Russian asset suddenly became “not comme il faut”. ICU promptly announced its exit: a sale agreement, it said, was already being prepared. But in October 2023 it emerged that the company still owned the same 35% — in a business shared with Russia’s VTB and Russian businessman Alexander Kolobov. The deal, it seems, was being prepared like a burger in a very slow restaurant.
Source: BBC
In September 2025, the entity that owns Russian Burger King re-registered in Kaliningrad Oblast as MKOOO “BKR” and keeps turning a steady profit — RUB 421 million for 2025. Whether the Cypriot company (read: Pasenyuk and Stetsenko) has sold its stake is still unknown. If not, then all these years the Russian “patty” never got stuck in the beneficiaries’ throats. And the only ones left hungry in this story are Ukraine and Ukrainians, who still do not know the answer to this question. Then again, the situation can be summed up without it — with a single internet meme:
Only instead of a burger, it is a deal to acquire a Russian asset.
The bill, please: the OPG and SBI case
An extra serving of trouble for Pasenyuk and the entities he controls came in the form of a criminal case opened by the Office of the Prosecutor General and the State Bureau of Investigation. According to the case files, investigators see signs of high treason in the actions of Makar Pasenyuk and Kostiantyn Stetsenko, and abuse of office in the actions of Valeria Gontareva.
Investigators also point out that as of 2014, almost 23% of ICU Holdings belonged to a company linked to the wife of a former deputy chairman of Russia’s VTB. And they single out the Burger King Russia episode — the very same 2018 stake bought from the Russian state bank.
None of those involved has been officially served with a notice of suspicion. And, frankly, that will not be easy — the addressees have scattered like guests after a corporate party. Gontareva moved to the UK back in 2018 and teaches at the London School of Economics. Kostiantyn Stetsenko, judging by the YouControl data cited above, lives in the UAE. And Makar Pasenyuk chose cosy Switzerland and is living his best life in the small village of Walchwil on the shore of picturesque Lake Zug, in the canton of the same name. The view from there is said to be wonderful. Especially of the Ukrainian news — from afar.
Sowers of bonds
ICU offers online investing. And this is a case where the product deserves a conversation of its own.
You go to the website and are immediately greeted by three words. No, not “Veni, vidi, vici”, but “Opened. Chose. Invested.” It sounds like the instructions on a packet of Mivina instant noodles: open, add boiling water, wait. Only instead of noodles you get securities, and instead of three minutes, a “long-term horizon”.
On the home page: a lawn, sunshine and a man in a suit sleeping peacefully. The caption beside him reads “Calm investments”. The idea is clear: you are not on a financial market, you are at a spa. Pay a thousand hryvnias, lie down on the grass, wake up a millionaire. Or just wake up. Nobody gives guarantees, as we all know, but you will certainly get a good night’s sleep.
The pricing plans are a separate source of amusement: “Basic — from UAH 1,000” and “Premium — from UAH 7 million”. The gap between them is like the one between a railway-station meat pastry and a lobster Thermidor at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Although the pastry is an investment of sorts too: high risk, and the outcome is impossible to predict.
That said, ICU knows more about fast food than you might think. A fund structure under its management once bought a sizeable stake in Burger King Russia from Russia’s state-owned VTB. Apparently it was a kind of “Premium” for insiders: a Whopper with a view of the Kremlin. After 2022, ICU announced that it had exited the Russian business. To whom it sold, for how much and when the deal was finally closed is still unknown. So there seems to be an exit, but, just like at that Burger King, nobody handed over the receipt.
For 7 million they promise impeccable service, early access to analytics and membership of the “ICU Club” with private events. So what you buy is not a financial instrument but a ticket to a parallel world where men in suits sleep on lawns not from exhaustion but from affluence. It remains to be seen whether the package includes a blanket — and whether it happens to have been sewn somewhere outside Moscow.
With this approach, ICU clearly chose the wrong banner. Far more honest would be the painting that Ostap Bender and Kisa Vorobyaninov produced on the steamboat in “The Twelve Chairs”: “The Sower Scattering State Loan Bonds”. At least there it is immediately clear who is sowing and who is reaping the harvest.
The duck test
There is such a thing as the duck test — a test of the obvious. Its essence is very simple: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck…
So let us analyse our “phenomenon” once more. It waddles around state money, swims in the waters of a Cypriot offshore, and quacks respectably in the language of an investment banker, reassuring investors, regulators and KSE donors. An ideal decoy duck, whose main job is to lure others in. And while this attractive decoy draws in trust and money, the duck itself feeds on Russian money and burgers.
And while Ukraine keeps debating the duck’s dubious dealings, the duck itself is calmly swimming in Lake Zug.
