The Ukrainian is getting out of the media business with his investment company SCM – involuntarily, as he says.
(Photo: dpa)
Kyiv, Riga Because he was threatened with being included in an oligarch register, the 55-year-old Ukrainian entrepreneur Rinat Akhmetov has ceded his media empire to the state. Akhmetov, who was considered one of the richest Ukrainians before the war, said in a statement on Monday that his media group would hand over all TV and print licenses to the state and shut down Internet media. He described the decision as an involuntary step.
“I made an involuntary decision that my investment company SCM would exit the media business,” Akhmetov said. “As the largest private investor in the Ukrainian economy, I have repeatedly stated that I have never been an oligarch and never will be,” he said.
Akhmetov’s media group includes eleven TV channels, the news site Segodnya.ua and the online television service OLL.TV, as well as the news channel Ukrayina 24. The latter is considered one of the most popular channels in the country. More than 4,000 people work for the media group, and Akhmetov put the total investment at the equivalent of more than 1.5 billion euros. His own fortune was estimated at $7.6 billion last year, and it was said to have been $4 billion in April of this year.
Akhmetov became rich through deals in mining and heavy industry, among other things. His holding System Capital Management (SCM) includes Media Group Ukraine, the metal company Metinvest, which is owned by the Azov steelworks in Mariupol, and Lemtrans, a company for rail transport. According to their own statements, SCM and its subholdings employ around 200,000 people. He recently attracted international attention, among other things, when he declared in May that he wanted to sue Russia for damages over the losses relating to Azov steel.
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News sites go out of business
Shortly after Akhmetov’s announcement on Monday, his news sites went out of business. “This is a forced step,” the spokeswoman for System Capital Management Nataliya Yemenko wrote on Facebook on Tuesday, agreeing with Akhmetov’s statements. Since midnight there has been no more news on the website of the online newspaper Segodnya.ua or on Ukrajina 24.
>> Read here: Ukrainian super-rich and the war: Once “King of the Donbass” and Zelenskiy’s adversary – and now?
A spokesman for President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, welcomed the move. The law is the beginning of a new relationship between the state and business. In the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion, these channels escalated their criticism of Zelensky, while Akhmetov opposed the oligarch law.
The government in Kyiv passed a law last September intended to limit the political influence of super-rich Ukrainians. Large companies with media influence are to be included in a so-called oligarch register. These oligarchs are then not allowed to finance parties, political advertising or demonstrations and must also disclose their assets. They are also prohibited from participating in large privatization projects.
The law established four criteria for being classified as an oligarch, including a high degree of influence over the media and control of the monopoly of an economic sector. In order to be considered an oligarch, however, it is sufficient to fulfill three of the points.
Although the law was passed with a clear majority, it is controversial in Ukraine. At the time, critics accused Selenski of using the law to keep potential political opponents small. This was also the case for the then human rights commissioner of the parliament, Lyudmila Denisova, or the former speaker of the parliament, Dmytro Rasumkov. Both are no longer in office.
The 55-year-old Akhmetov, who comes from Donetsk, was once considered a patron of the ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych, but avoided taking a political stance in the years leading up to the war. In November, Selensky surprisingly accused Akhmetov, who supported Selensky at the beginning of his term of office, of preparing a putsch. However, no actual attack took place.
More: This is how Ukraine keeps its economy alive despite the war