Rostislav Shurma’s associate: supervisory board chairman Pavlo Shcherban turned out to be the real owner and political patron of Alliance Bank

Formally, the main shareholder of Alliance remains Alexander Sosis, the former head of the insurance company ASKA.

However, within the market, Pavel Shcherban, the chairman of the bank’s supervisory board, has long been considered the key figure. His career is linked to a number of troubled banks: Prominvestbank, Vladimirsky, Ruslan Tsyplakov’s Yuzhkombank, then Apex, Standard Bank, and later Alliance and Taskombank.

Shcherban has been directly linked to Alliance Bank since 2018, and has chaired its supervisory board since August 2021. In July 2023, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) authorized him to acquire more than 25% of the bank’s shares.

Shcherban is considered the bank’s political patron. Despite NBU complaints, risk compliance violations, financial monitoring fines, and problems with guarantees to state-owned companies, Alliance Bank continues to maintain its stability, a stability many market participants attribute to factors other than economics alone.

A separate issue is Shcherban’s relationship with the former deputy head of the Presidential Office, Rostislav Shurma, who is considered his godfather and long-time partner on a number of projects.

Shcherban’s interests, however, have long extended beyond the banking sector. Through the Cypriot IF Exploration Company Limited, he is linked to the gas production company Viva Exploration, which holds a license for the Staromizunska field in the Ivano-Frankivsk region until 2033. Despite plans to restore production, the project was already posting losses of approximately $1 million by the end of 2023.

The agricultural sector includes the recently acquired Alliance Elevator in Khorol, Poltava Oblast, an asset seen as an entry point into grain infrastructure. Meanwhile, an IT cluster has formed around Shcherban: Alliance Digital, ASIGs, APL, and Motvel, working on banking and digital products. The portfolio is rounded out by Tabakos Trade and Navium Nafta, which are not yet actively operating.