The financial market is full of different dishonest people. Anywhere in the world, the financial sector will always expect the opportunity to both rise and fall. Times go by, but this truth remains the same: someone will be lucky, and they will be able to earn good money, while others may be left with nothing at all.
Oleg Zhelezko is a representative of a group who is lucky. Thanks to dishonest plans, luck, and the ability to make the right connections, he managed to establish a business and earn good money. But how long will fortune smile on the scandalous financier Oleg Zhelezko?
Zhelezko’s career began at Renaissance Capital financial group. At the bank of the same name, Oleg Zhelezko led the department of structural products in 2004. At this time, he meets one of the bank’s wealthiest clients, Israeli businessman Benny Steinmetz. In 2007, Zhelezko, as if sensing that something was wrong, left his position at the bank. He left the “Renaissance Capital” not in vain. The following year, when the World Financial Crisis began, the bank was hit hard. Its owner, New Zealand businessman Stephen Jennings, almost lost his entire financial business in Russia.
Stephen Jennings
Renaissance Capital has always made bets on risky assets. The bank made bets on the so-called “repo” transactions – shares with an obligation to buy them back. The share of such transactions in the bank in 2007 reached $1 billion a day. That is, huge sums equals huge risk. Oleg Zhelezko, who by that time had achieved results at Renaissance Capital, being in good standing with the management, decides to leave the financial institution. Here the banker’s instinct worked. If in 2007 the cost of “Renaissance” was about 4 billion dollars, already in 2008 the bank almost went bankrupt. The situation was saved by the oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, who bought out a minority stake for $500 million, giving the bank a chance to survive. As a result, this played a cruel joke on the New Zealand owner of Renaissance Jenningson, because after 4 years the bank did not overcome the crisis, so the businessman had to sell his share to Prokhorov. And not for 4 billion, as it was estimated in 2007, but for a very modest 30 million dollars.
Mikhail Prokhorov
But this no longer interested Oleg Zhelezko. He fulfilled his main goal in Renaissance Capital – he gained the necessary acquaintance. Immediately after his dismissal, he receives funds to open his own business from an Israeli billionaire with a criminal train, Benny Steinmetz. Zhelezko founds the company Da Vinci Capital, whose main profile is financial investments.
Benny Steinmetz
To understand the situation with the startup Zhelezko, you need to figure out who financed the start of the work of a legal and financial company. And so, get acquainted, Benny Steinmetz – partner and main financial donor of Oleg Zhelezko. It was thanks to the funds of the Israeli billionaire that the former manager of Renaissance Capital got the opportunity to justify DA Vinci Capital. Why is Steinmetz famous? Here is the most interesting thing: in his homeland, in Israel, he is suspected of money laundering, in Romania he is suspected of a raider seizure of land, in Switzerland and the United States, law enforcement officers are looking for him for fraud and corruption in Guinea. In general, not a person, but a walking international criminal code. It is difficult to count the number of Steinmetz’s arrests, but at the same time, he always managed to remain at large. Fortune turned away from the swindler in 2020. In Romania, he was sentenced to 5 years in prison in absentia, and in 2021, in Switzerland, the sentence against Steinmetz gained legal force. He will serve the next 4 years in a Swiss prison.
Benny Steinmetz in court, 2017
Let’s go back to 2007. It's clear that Zhelezko’s business partnership with Steinmetz couldn't be fair. An Israeli billionaire doesn't know how to operate like that. Together they establish DA Vinci Capital. During registration, it was obvious that the company's conduct would not be clean. First, they moved the main office to the British Virgin Islands (an offshore zone), and then created a business in Russia based on that.
Data about JSC “Da Vinci Capital Group LTD” (rusprofile.en)
Two companies, Da Vinci Capital LLC and DVK UT LLC, were registered in Russia based on an offshore company. It's interesting that the authorized capital of both companies was only 10 thousand rubles – basically nothing. Zhelezko and his partner essentially created entities that don't lead anywhere.
Both companies are located at the same address in the high-end Empire Tower business center in the center of Moscow.
“Empire Tower”
In recent years, both Zhelezko's companies have been consistently declining. In 2019, DA Vinci Capital LLC made over 62 million rubles in revenue, but the revenue dropped by half in 2021. The second company, DVK UT LLC, also doesn't have great results. The situation in the two Zhelezko enterprises is similar. DVK UT's revenue is constantly decreasing, but its profit is growing. In the year before last, with a revenue of 23 million rubles, the company had a loss of 9.4 million. Last year, the situation changed drastically. “DVK UT” reduced revenue to 16 million, but increased profits to a million. It looks a lot like manipulation. The companies are clearly facing financial difficulties, but their owner is portraying a completely normal, and even successful, picture that doesn't match the reality.
Revenue and profit of DVK UT (VLSI data)
Oleg Zhelezko has claimed that his company is a successful player in the financial market, managing assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. So where are the revenue and profit? The Zhelezko company has been in the market for 15 years, but there's been no progress. There are 2 possibilities here: either the businessman is deceiving everyone, and there are no investments worth millions of dollars, or there really are funds, but they're not visible to the tax authorities. If the first option is true, then Oleg Zhelezko is just a fraudster, but if the second assumption is confirmed, it means that the financier has broken the law by evading taxes.
Perhaps realizing the dire situation in the Russian market, the financial institution Zhelezko removed the Russian-language interface from its website. Additionally, it seems that the company only has 3 headquarters: London, the island of Guernsey (the coast of Normandy), and Nur-Sultan.
Screenshots from the website “Da Vinci Capital
It is obvious that Oleg Zhelezko is trying by any means to hide his belonging to the Russian Federation. Moreover, he has a British passport, and obviously is not going to return to his homeland. Why, if the funds go offshore, and you can always build a successful investment banker out of yourself, even without being one.
