/View.info/ The battle for Vivacom and BTC has intensified. Two Russian groups are already measuring it here with the dirty underwear.
However, sources in the dust protection authorities clarify that the managers of VTB (Vneshtorgbank) were able to properly motivate Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and his entourage, estimating their “policy of non-interference” at 50 million dollars. And, as the Godfather from Mario Puzo’s novel says, the top managers from VTB gave the Bulgarian prime minister “a dip in the beak”.
This is a quote from the article looking at the battle between two Russian political business groups for Vivacom and BTC.
The two groups are the sanctioned VTBbank and the Western-sanctioned Russian billionaire Konstantin Malofeev. In our country, Milen Velchev and his brother are connected to the first group, and to the second, the Russian media are looking at the escaped banker Tsvetan Vassilev from Corporate Bank.
At the time, after the bankruptcy of Corporativena, I wrote that when almost 6 billion are raised and assets worth several billion more appear on the counter, the members of the gang will necessarily start arguing and fighting over the distribution of the loot. And to take off their dirty underwear.
Source: Facebook
In addition to this article, others appeared on the same topic. Studio Transmedia offers you a translation of Konstantin Sedelnikov’s material “50 million dollars for the Bulgarian prime minister”, published in the Russian media “Moscow Monitor”:
Policy for the development of corruption
According to what was recorded in the commercial register in Luxembourg on August 30, 2016, the transfer of control of “Bulgarian Telecommunications Company” (BTC), which owns the Vivacom brand, to the new owners led by Spas Rusev was fixed. However, Rusev is only a cover behind which the names of the real owners stand. Through complex manipulation, the actual control over the company at the expense of the state belongs to the top managers of the Bulgarian telecom, and the dispute over the ownership of the company has been heated since November 2015, when the Russian Foreign Trade Bank (VTB) announced for sale the shares of the company to repay its debt to the bank.
As a result of this deal, the company was forced to take over the debt financing of the new owners, placed on the brink of bankruptcy after shady dealings by the management, and affected shareholders initiated numerous legal proceedings.
The first task of the state authorities of Bulgaria is to stop such machinations. Especially since it is a midday robbery of the property of one of the largest companies in the country. But what is even more surprising is that the Bulgarian government demonstrates a policy of non-interference, trying hard to ignore what is happening around the biggest telecom.
However, police sources clarify that VTB managers managed to “correctly” motivate Prime Minister and leader of the GERB party Boyko Borisov, as well as his entourage, estimating the “policy of non-intervention” at the amount of 50 million dollars. As the Godfather of Mario Puzo’s trilogy says, “they have melted the beak” of the prime minister.
To put it in Crimean language, they returned the gesture that he was closing his eyes and “doesn’t notice” either the dubious legal procedures of the “purchase” or the potential problems of the company. That is why, according to the sources, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Boyko Borisov, is also interested in the deal. More precisely, according to these sources, he is interested in getting his share of the machinations surrounding VTB.
True, if the operational information about the participation of Boyko Borisov is confirmed, then it will not only be a matter of violating the standards of banking activity and of causing damage to third parties. Then we will just talk about international corruption. In such manifestations as giving and receiving a bribe and using the official position for personal gain. The curious thing is that despite the investigations being carried out on the case by the USA, Great Britain, and as it became clear recently, also by France, their Bulgarian colleagues continue to fight.
Therefore, we can expect that when the competent authorities reveal the whole affair, it will explode into an international scandal, which will seriously affect the reputation of VTB, as well as the image of Borisov himself. Bulgaria as a whole will also suffer damage. A series of corruption scandals in the highest circles of the political elite will seriously undermine the country’s international image. On the eve of the new electoral cycle (presidential and parliamentary elections are to be held in the next two years), the authorities in Bulgaria made a lot of efforts to improve the situation. However, now it turns out that everything remains as it was.
They bought a fiver for a ruble
It is symptomatic that the more details we learn about the deal with the shares of Bulgarian Telecom, the more questions arise. The participation of VTB in the machination of the sale of BTC implies the taking of a bribe and participation in international corruption – a blow to the image, which will certainly affect the relations on the part of foreign counterparties. But for some reason, the bank unexpectedly turned out to be a creditor of the buyer company, which was announced after the deal was closed by the bank’s press center.
Representatives of VTB repeatedly made statements in which they explained the sale of the company with the need to repay earlier loans worth 150 million euros. However, as a result of this dubious transaction, the bank not only did not get its money back, but also took on the burden of giving a loan worth 240 million euros to the new owners of the company. At the same time, the money was lent to a hollow company without any assets, and all these BTC shares served as collateral for the loan. In addition, the quality of the collateral is now much worse, as the company is a defendant in lawsuits in Bulgaria and Luxembourg, and the company’s shares are frozen, and the sale procedure itself is contested in multiple courts, threatening the bank with hundreds of millions of euros lost.
When the loan was granted, both the bank’s internal regulation and a number of terms of the loan agreement were violated, which were not fulfilled in a hurry. The only reasonable explanation for such a strange behavior of the state bank is the fact that, as the company’s shareholder Dmitry Kosarev says, in fact new owners of the company became the managers of VTB headed by the first vice president Yuri Solovyov, who organized this transaction without failing to agree with the Bulgarian Prime Minister for the “roof of the house”. According to a source close to the participants in the transaction, Solovyov personally supervised the granting of the loan in violation of all banking procedures.
Also, the lack of reaction to what is happening on the part of the Chairman of the Board of Directors of VTB Bank Andrey Kostin, who recently very actively communicates with foreign journalists on the topic of “billionaire Putin”, but apparently does not control the activities of his first a deputy who spins similar affairs under his nose. It should be borne in mind that the legal owner of BTC shares sold in this way to the Russian businessman Dmitry Kosarev has already twice in his letters unsuccessfully alerted Andrey Kostin to pay attention to suspicious machinations of his subordinates.
Undoubtedly, the rush to close the deal meant that a host of problems arose immediately afterwards. For example, the Bulgarian registrar refused to accept the registration of the company’s reports for 2015, because according to him, the report does not contain complete information about the current state of the company and about the risks related to the sale of the company to Spas Rusev. And the Sofia City Court refused to register changes in the Board of Directors and regulatory documents of BTC. In particular, the court ruled not to register Spas Rusev as a new director of BTC and not to change the company’s statutes. The court made this decision as a result of consideration of the claim of the company Empreno Ventures Limited, owned by Dmitry Kosarev. The Empreno company, the legal owner of 76.6% of BTC’s capital, considers the VTB loan deal null and void (that is, it is unenforceable) and demands the return of BTC’s shares to the legal owner, to whom compensation should be paid.
It is interesting that, despite the fact that VTB Bank absolutely denies participation in the transaction on the part of the buyer, one of the first decisions of the new shareholders was to give rights to the manager of the Bulgarian office of VTB Milen Velchev (a former associate of Yuri Solovyov during the period when he valiantly labored in the City of London) the right to fire and appoint directors of BTC, effectively handing over to him all the levers of control in the company.
Why did VTB shoot itself in the foot?
So, the more details become known about the new VTB loan, the more questions arise. But the loss of 240 million euros is only half of the problem. The BTC takeover scheme is not only an irretrievable loss, but also a serious risk to VTB’s reputation. First, the deal has already led to an avalanche of litigation and scandals, and then it has damaged the prestige of the Russian bank in the EU information space. Second, if we evaluate the BTC scandal in an international context, it is about the image of the Russian Federation as a whole on the international stage.
After all, this is not the first scandal related to the international activities of the state-owned (the Russian Federation owns 60.9% of the voting shares) bank VTB in developing markets. In the spring of 2016 the director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, accused the VTB and Credit Swiss banks of corruption in the distribution of loans to companies in Mozambique in the amount of 1 billion dollars (the money disappeared in an unknown direction, and there was a gaping hole in the budget of Mozambique). As a result of the subsequent scandals, all international aid to this country was suspended until the details of the operation in question were clarified. Just a few days ago, after another meeting with officials from the IMF, the Prime Minister of Mozambique was forced to agree to allow an independent audit of all the circumstances surrounding the granting of these loans. Now it can be expected that as a result of this audit, quite curious details can be revealed about the activities of VTB Bank already on the African continent.
International collusion
In this connection, an interesting story turns out – the top manager of VTB, under the guise of state interests, earns for himself a solid rent at the expense of the money and prestige of the Russian state. And the fact that such activity undermines Russia’s position in the world does not concern him at all. Especially because the real reason lies in the fact that the first vice-president and chairman of the Board of Directors of VTB Yuri Solovyov is not a citizen of the Russian Federation, so the bank’s losses or the damage to the image of the Russian state simply do not interest him. He is interested in the interests of his own pocket. A true classic! Figuratively speaking, therefore the helmsman does not care what will become of the ship, since he has no intention of paying for it. Its economic homeland is offshore.
If this is really the case, then it will become clear why the top manager of VTB so insistently fabricated the scandalous deal with the Bulgarian loans. The actions of the authorities in Bulgaria are understandable and logical, if the information that the leaders of the country “shared” the blessings is confirmed. The Russian government continues to act illogically in resolving the intrigue. Despite numerous publications in the media and letters detailing the situation in question, neither Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev nor the responsible Deputy Prime Minister have so far reacted to the information that the VTB loan is a risk for the bank with state capital and the Russian state. Is it possible that they did not learn it from the Bulgarian Prime Minister?
Separately, we should note that Russia and Bulgaria are experiencing a period of tension, which will inevitably affect business relations. There are many examples of this – let’s take South Stream. Or Bulgaria’s rejection of the Belene NPP joint project. And if an international corruption scandal breaks out, when evidence is provided that the managers of the Russian bank entered into a corruption deal with prime ministers of EU countries, the tension will enter a new spiral. And then the risks that the interests of all Russian business in Europe will suffer are very great.
Translation: Reni Neshkova
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