REUTERS
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announces he has signed an agreement to transfer his stake in Roshen confectionery corporation to an independent trust managed by a foreign bank, which has been authorized to hold talks on the sale of the company's assets.
"This year I've eventually signed this agreement, but the legal procedures took much time. My stake in Roshen has been transferred to an independent trust, which is based on a 'blind' trust model, created in keeping with the best international standards and under the laws of Ukraine," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Thursday.
In his words, during presidency he cannot participate in the management of the trust, and his signatures and decisions regarding the company will not have any legal force.
"A respectable first-class foreign bank has been appointed as the manager of this trust, which will own, control and manage the assets. Let me stress this again: a 'blind' trust model is used by leading European and U.S. politicians in similar situations and is the only tool to avoid a conflict of interests," Poroshenko said.
Under the Ukrainian Constitution, the country's president is not allowed to hold a position in the government or run a business, be a representative of a company's supervisory board.
When running for president, Poroshenko in May 2014 announced plans to sell his business assets except for Channel 5. Later he hired Rothschild to sell his Roshen corporation.
UNIAN's memo. Roshen is Ukraine's largest confectionery producer. It is owned by Petro Poroshenko. Roshen's annual output is 450,000 tonnes of confectionery. It consists of confectionery factories in Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Kremenchuk and those in Lipetsk (Russia), Klaipeda (Lithuania) and Bonbonetti Choco Kft in Budapest (Hungary). It also incorporates a dairy factory, which sells its produce to the confectioneries.
A blind trust is a trust in which the fiduciaries, namely the trustees or those who have been given power of attorney, have full discretion over the assets, and the trust beneficiaries have no knowledge of the holdings of the trust and no right to intervene in their handling. Blind trusts are generally used when a settlor (sometimes called a trustor or donor) wishes to keep the beneficiary unaware of the specific assets in the trust, such as to avoid conflicts of interests between the beneficiary and the investments.