Park and Ride: Nemirovsky's Way from Insurance Agent to a Successful Businessman
How Did Vlad Nemirovsky Make His Fortune, and How Is It Connected to Airport Parking in the UK and the Multi-Million Pound Lawsuit Against Toby Whittaker and Park First?
After parting ways with his dubious partner Motti Gruzman, Vlad Nemirovsky tells investors how he failed to see Motti’s true nature in time, how Motti deceived even him, and how Vlad is now working 16-hour days to recover investors' money from Motti—money that Nemirovsky himself had raised for Gruzman’s projects. And, of course, how he is already setting everything straight.
Park First – The Investment Offer You Can’t Refuse
We, Excelion Victims Board, have done some research into the "glorious past" of Vladislav Nemirovsky—an internationally renowned businessman.
Nemirovsky spent about 20 years in Moscow, where he founded Fortune Capital, an international investment and insurance brokerage firm catering to Russian clients. By the time he partnered with Gruzman in 2019 and began marketing Excelion’s projects, Nemirovsky was already a successful investment broker—largely thanks to Park First, "the offer you can’t refuse."
Park First was an investment in parking spaces at three UK airports: Gatwick, Luton, and Glasgow. It was a financial product of Group First, owned by British businessman Toby Scott Whittaker.
Starting in September 2013, nearly 100 of Nemirovsky’s agents sold parking investments under fantastic conditions*:
✅ Profitability: 7–12% per year in GBP
✅ Liquidity: The parking space could be sold at any time
✅ Reliability: Investors received a title deed for the parking lot and shares in the management company, earning dividends
✅ Low entry threshold: Basic cost of £25,000 (approx. 2.2 million rubles), with special purchase options available
✅ No need to leave Moscow: Transactions could be completed at Park First’s Moscow office, documents delivered by mail, and income deposited directly into investors' bank accounts
*Taken from Nemirovsky’s marketing materials
So, only a complete fool would refuse such a tempting offer, right?
Especially when a guaranteed 8% annual return was promised for the first two years, with the first year’s payment made upfront immediately after purchase!
As Nemirovsky himself told Forbes Russia in February 2016, as the official representative of Group First in Russia:
❝ The average check from Russian investors is £200,000, and every month, dozens of new clients arrive.
Park & Scam
In 2017, following intervention by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Park First agreed to stop marketing its highly successful investment product. In an FCA statement, it was declared:
❝We took the view that these were collective investment schemes, which can be a high-risk investment.
Only authorised firms and individuals can operate or promote them. Given the circumstances of this case, we will not take further action at this time, but reserve the right to do so if it appears action is appropriate.
However, despite its formal agreement with the FCA, Park First continued to market its investments, including through Nemirovsky in Russia.
In November 2019, FCA launched legal proceedings against Toby Whittaker and Park First. Compensation orders are being sought over a scheme said to have raised £230million from 4,500 investors. An FCA spokesperson stated:
❝ (We allege) that the scheme was promoted to the public using false or misleading statements. The defendants made statements to the effect that investors could realistically expect returns of 10 per cent in years three and four of their investment and 12 per cent in years five and six. The FCA alleges the defendants had no proper basis for these statements which were false or misleading. …the defendants were aware that the valuations were based on unrealistic returns.
As early as 2021, reports emerged that the FCA was planning to recover another £25 million from Toby Scott Whittaker. The regulator had already secured £33 million from the sale of Park First’s Luton Airport car park, but even if the latest deal with Whittaker was fully honored, investors would still face heavy losses.
Victims of the scheme, which the FCA condemned as illegal, have lodged claims for approximately £150 million, but sources close to the case suggest total losses may exceed £200 million.
I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
As mentioned earlier, Nemirovsky continued marketing Park First even after FCA had initiated proceedings against the company. So, perhaps he truly didn’t know? Maybe Whittaker hid the FCA issues from him?
The answer to this question lies in the Forbes article quoted above. The author of the piece reported that as early as 2009, Toby Whittaker, the founder of Park First, was the owner of the failed brokerage firm Dylan Harvey Residential. The company had raised £6.5 million from 500 investors within two years for residential projects in Manchester but collapsed following the financial crisis.
After that, Whittaker ran the pension advisory firm We Find Any Pension, which the FCA later declared had operated without the necessary authorizations.
It’s highly doubtful that Nemirovsky never read the very article in which he himself was quoted or that he was unaware of his British partner’s habits.
The Parking Lot Goldmine: Cashing In While Stepping Out
In January 2018, 2 months after FCA launched legal proceedings against Park First, Nemirovsky visited the offices of Group First alongside his right-hand associate at Fortune Capital, Lola Chiniyeva, for a meeting with Whittaker. Upon their return, Chiniyeva became the exclusive representative of Group First, while Nemirovsky himself quietly stepped away from Park First. The product vanished from his company’s website, he stopped promoting it personally, and the entire operation was handed over to Lola. She continued marketing investments in UK parking lots until the summer of 2019.
Here’s another crucial detail that might explain 
Nemirovsky’s unwavering attachment to Park First: beyond its easy sales pitch, the product also rewarded agents with a 30% commission (according to The Times). If the average investment in parking spaces among Nemirovsky’s clients was indeed £200,000, that meant a £60,000 profit per deal. We don’t know how many deals Nemirovsky and Chiniyeva closed, but even if each of the 100 agents they worked with made just one sale, the total profit would be a staggering £6 million.
Who would walk away from a cash machine like that? After all, Vladislav Nemirovsky was just an unlucky broker who happened to cross paths with a dubious supplier. What could he possibly have done?
