Black Masks & Akhmetov

Armed police searched the offices of Luks, yesterday, a company belonging to Rinat Akhmetov, an oligarch heading the SCM financial group. Luks is a hotel complex and the residence of Akhmetov. In March, Forbes included Akhmetov as the world?s 258th richest man, out of a list of 691. Concorde Capital: The government claims the raid by men in black masks is part of standard investigation into economic abuse, while SCM claims it is an act of political pressure against Rinat Akhmetov. During the election campaign, Akhmetov, as well as another oligarch, Viktor Pinchuk, actively supported the presidential runner-up Viktor Yanukovich. Now that their candidate has lost, they both need to defend their assets. A Pinchuk-Akhmetov consortium acquired Kryvorizhstal (KRST: HOLD) in 2004, but have already failed to defend their ownership of the company. Securing their personal freedom may also become an issue in the short term. Pinchuk seems better prepared: as a parliament member he enjoys immunity status and he began a PR campaign last year positioning himself as a sponsor of Ukrainian arts, and a man with contacts to high profile global personalities. Akhmetov has begun to increase the transparency of some of his holdings. For example, two GOKs controlled by SCM, posted surprisingly high net profits for 2004, which is especially impressive compared with the results posted by the GOKs controlled by Privat, another business group which does not conflict with the government. Only now are there signs that Akhmetov will also began a PR campaign.