Tycoons selling property amid foreclosures
Optima Ventures, the U.S. real-estate holding company owned by two Ukrainian tycoons under FBI investigation for money laundering, has filed a motion in a court in the U.S. state of Delaware to sell two more buildings in the city of Cleveland amid foreclosure proceedings. Optima Ventures, once the largest commercial real-estate operator in the Midwestern city, is seeking to sell 55 Public Square, a 22-story skyscraper, as well as its stake in the Westin Cleveland Downtown hotel, according to court documents filed on December 24, 2020. The holding company, which is controlled by Ukrainian billionaires Ihor Kolomoyskiy and Hennadiy Boholyubov, owes about $50 million on the two properties and has failed to make payments in recent months, according to separate lawsuits filed in Cleveland. The United States has accused Mr. Kolomoyskiy and Mr. Boholyubov of buying U.S. assets, including real estate and metals plants, with hundreds of millions of dollars laundered from their Kyiv-based lender PrivatBank.