New developments regarding the publication “Flying over the Phoenix nest”…

Rambler News Service has recently reported the deal made between Ukrainian IT businessman Max Polyakov and Andrei Bronetsky (Mamba CEO). As a matter of fact, Bronetsky left e-commerce project Aport.ru, and sold his share to Max Polyakov et al. While price paid for it recently remains unknown, the project is listed among TOP-5 commercial aggregators in the Russian speaking Internet. Back in 2000 Aport.ru was bought by Vimpelcom telecom group for USD 25 million. Given that Max Polyakov (the buyer) was mentioned in few of our previous materials, and seems to show predator behavior against his business partners systematically, we made an inquiry into this recent case.

In the interview for RNS Bronetsky said that he used to develop Aport.ru together with ex-partner Max Polyakov, who is mostly known in relation to the British online dating company Cupid plc. According to the publication, “Max brought a great e-commerce team with him, and we became profitable quite soon”.

In relation to the reason for exit, Bronetsky mentioned that “he didn’t have the chance to take direct and active part in the project”. According to him, he sold share to Mr.Polyakov and his other partner in late summer 2016, because he “wanted to pay closest attention to projects, that he has direct and personal control over”. Does this mean that Polyakov wrestled him off Aport.ru on peripheral role?

In a confidential telephone conversation, sources close to the deal, have made an interesting hypotheses: Bronetsky may have decided to leave the project after he found out that Polyakov sold part of his share to an unknown party in 2015.

A similar story featuring Mr.Polyakov was reported by US outlet News Blaze in July 2016. The author, Anne Lawson, argues that “Max Polyakov not only managed to lead Cupid plc to its success and sell its shares when the prices peaked, he also took control of the company after shares reached a knockdown price.” She than continues: “There is strong evidence of that the scandal in the media in 2013, which led to the free fall of Cupid plc shares, was planned and provoked. It appeared that Max Polyakov became the only person to obtain enormous profit from running the dating services BeNaughty, CheekyLovers, WildBuddies, Click & Flirt, QuickFlirt, Flirt and others.”

Strikingly similar developments took place in the story reported by us on 24^th of September. The url to it can be found here https://luxherald.com/2407-flying-phoenix-nest.html .

It is also worth noting that some time later we have received a legally-looking complaint on behalf of Mr.Polaykov with request to take this article down. While the editorial board came to unanimous decision not to comply with the request, we have received menacing messages about the forthcoming attack on our informational infrastructure (DOS). While it can“t be reliably attributed to the party which initiated complaint we have found such coincidence disturbing, and published an announcement regarding this case ( https://luxherald.com/0424-editorial-announcement-regarding-published-article-flying-phoenix-nest.html ). After this publication, the attacks stopped.

With regard to developments in connection to Aport.ru deal, it is possible to say that Mr.Polyakov shows an explicit record of unethical behavior both in business and vis-à-vis any other third party including independent media. Most likely, that Phoenix Networks Ltd’s minor shareholders Gilfanov and Tokarev, where among the least who searched for legal remedy of such wrongdoings.

We will keep following this story further.