The sanctioned separatist bank “the State Bank of the Luhansk People's Republic” lists a somewhat surprising entity in its list of “credit organizations”, something called:
“Limited Liability Company "NON-BANK CREDIT ORGANIZATION "RENAISSANCE-CAPITAL"
or, in Russian:
“Общество с ограниченной ответственностью «НЕБАНКОВСКАЯ КРЕДИТНАЯ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯ «РЕНЕССАНС-КАПИТАЛ»”
The offshoreleaks.icij.org database maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists lists five entities named “RENAISSANCE CAPITAL (something)” which are registered in both Bermuda and Russia. Those are:
Renaissance Capital (ESS) Limited
Renaissance Capital Asset Management Limited
Renaissance Capital Group Limited
Renaissance Capital Holdings Limited
Renaissance Capital International Services Limited
Expanding our parameters to anything named "RENAISSANCE (something)" with registration in Bermuda and Russia, there are 134 relationships listed, including ties to individuals and entities. Somewhat interestingly, Ernst & Young Russia or Ernst & Young LLC of Sadovnicheskaya Nab. is listed as “auditor” for five of those companies.
If we trace the “shareholder” relationships, a pattern emerges. This is what it looks like:
This is a partial picture; it is very likely that the other entities in the Panama Papers data named “Renaissance (something)” that are not registered in Bermuda or Russia are related. Nonetheless, just with what we have, a few puzzles can be seen to emerge:
Why are there different numbers of "layers" between Yurchenko and Prokhorov and the initial entities at the bottom? Is Yurchenko just, like… less important than Prokhorov?
Armstrong and Jennings recur as director, secretary, or similar employee for multiple Renaissance (something) companies in the ICIJ data. Do they work for Renaissance, is that what the relationship is supposed to be? If so, then why are they only shareholders for Renaissance Capital Group Limited? Is this their “payout” for serving as officers on other Renaissance entities?
Renaissance Holdings Management Limited or RHML (which, by the way, “holdings management limited”? really, come on people) is the only company out of this set that doesn’t have shareholders listed. Is RHML the “head office”, and the shareholder relationship constitutes a “payout”?
And, at the most basic level, like… why? Why go to all this trouble?
I could understand, say, two or three intermediating entities in a transaction. Why are there five layers with payouts and terminating and continuing relationships throughout the network of relationships?
At a certain point, it just seems… gratuitous.