Serhiy Kurchenko
Serhiy Witalijowytsch Kurtschenko ( born September 21, 1985 in Kharkiv, Ukrainian SSR ) is a Ukrainian businessman and sports official. Since December 2012, he is president of the football club Metalist Kharkiv.
Kurtschenko was born in Kharkiv and studied at the Technical University, and later at the Law Academy in his hometown.
His business career began at the company Kurtschenko Ekspogas. In 2008, the company increased on a large scale in the trading of liquefied gas a. Today, the group controlled VETEK, whose founder and chairman Kurtschenko is about 80 percent of the Ukrainian market for LPG.
In 2012 VETEK bought the football club Metalist Kharkiv by the then President Olexandr Jaroslawskyj at an unknown price. The hitherto largely unknown Kurtschenko became president of the association.
The Ukrainian edition of Forbes magazine published an article critical of Kurtschenko in December 2012. 2013 acquired VETEK Publishing Group Ukrainian Media Holding, which also belongs to Forbes. While he stated a purchase price of 170 million U.S. dollars itself, a purchase price of $ 400 million has been mentioned in various Ukrainian media. Following the acquisition of the publishing group, there were dismissals of several editors of Forbes, complained about the censorship attempts by the new owner.
In the published every year by the magazine correspondent list of the 100 richest Ukrainians Kurtschenko 2013 finished with a fortune of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars in 7th place.
Kurtschenko good relations with the family of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych said to have, in particular, he was a friend of Olexandr Yanukovych. Kurtschenko denied these compounds and stressed that he had completed his career on their own.
On 6 March 2014, the Council of the European Union in Brussels has imposed by Regulation 208/2014 restrictive measures against Serhiy Kurtschenko. This is justified by the prosecution of Kurtschenko for the investigation of criminal offenses in connection with the embezzlement of public funds of Ukraine and illegal transfer of funds abroad. According to media reports, is Kurtschenko should have stopped after the fall of Yanukovych to Moscow.