Recently Eximagrokom company, which owns an
oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region, reported attempts of the First Ukrainian International Bank (PUMB) to seize the
company's assets by forging guarantee agreements and using fake guarantors.
Responding to these accusations, the bank issued a press release in which senior officials of the financial
institution knowingly and intentionally provided false information about
Eximagrokom and groundlessly accused the company of bad faith in the
fulfillment of its loan obligations. The managers of the company state that
such actions of the bank are a cynical attempt to hide its intentions to
illegally seize the assets of its client, the market value of which is more
than $60 mln as a repayment for a UAH 36 mln loan. Bank PUMB is owned by a
Ukrainian oligarch Renat Akhmetov.
"This is a classic raidering scheme: an
oligarch’s bank attracts a client with good assets, forces him to mortgage
these assets as a guarantee for the loan, and then creates conditions when the
client is unable to repay it. As a result, the bank receives property worth ten
times more than the loan itself", - said head of Eximagrokom’s legal
department Edward Danilov commenting on the PUMB statement. "This is a
classic of the raidering genre performed by PUMB’s “ingenious" top
managers".
As previously reported, in 2014 Eximagrokom
received loan of 36 $mln. from PUMB. The loan was secured inter alia by a
mortgage of property rights on oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv.
"PUMB’s latest statement is a total
manipulation of facts and blatant untruth. The bank claimed, for example, that
Eximagrokom is part of a "group of related companies
"Agroprodukty". In legal terms, such a "group of companies"
does not exist. All companies the bank listed are separate and unrelated
structures. Needless to say, in this context the bank’s statement that Agroprodukty
group’s “cumulative debt is 500 mln UAH” is unfounded nonsense. It is very easy
to check these facts in the official National Registry of Companies”- said
Eximagrokom’s director Serhiy Holub.
"The same goes to PUMB’s statement that
Eximagrokom allegedly built the oil extraction plant in Chuhuiv “on the loan
funds received from the bank". In reality, the construction of the plant
was financed by "Forum" bank. We went to PUMB only in July 2014, when
the plant has already been completed, in order to obtain additional financing
in the amount of $36 mln. which we needed for the actual launch of the facility
", added Holub.
"PUMB’s distortion of facts reached its
height in the statement according to which 'the company [Eximagrokom] was not
planning to repay the debt from the beginning, as its owner recently
reregistered it in Cyprus offshore". First, Eximagrokom has never faulted
on its obligations to repay the loan. Up to July 2015, we promptly paid all
interest envisaged by the loan agreement. Secondly, Eximagrokom was registered
in Cyprus from its inception and the bank knew it at the time of issuing the
loan in 2014. No one, contrary to what the bank says, was trying to run away to
Cyprus from their loan obligations", continued Holub.
"On the other hand, the bank systematically
uses formal pretexts and artificially creates conditions that make it
impossible for us to service the loan. This gives us reason to believe that the
bank is not interested in Eximagrokom settling the loan but rather intends to
seize the plant in Chuhuiv. We have repeatedly told the bank, that we are ready
and able to fulfill all the loan obligations. However, the bank’s
unconstructive responses to our proposals made it clear to us that they are not
interested in the return of the loan – they want our factory. For PUMB it is a
profitable business, because if they can pull off this raidering scheme, they
will receive the asset worth more than $60 mln. for the loan which cost ten
times less", concluded Holub.
Eximagrokom leadership has appealed to the
prosecutor's office demanding to press criminal charges against the bank's
management and the fake guarantors – LLC "Modern Business" – for
fraudulent conspiracy with the purpose of taking possession of another's
property.
The next hearing in the case of the Eximagrokom
with the presence of "fraud guarantors" is scheduled for August 18,
2015 in Dnepropetrovsk.
In December, 2014 LLC Eximagrokom completed the
construction of its oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region. The
plant’s processing capacity is 1,200 tons of sunflower seeds per day. The
annual production capacity is 432,000 tons. The plant is equipped with the
world leading technologies and employs over 300 people.
For more information please visit www.eximagrokom.com, call +38 (063) 725-22-22 or e-mail press@eximagrokom.com
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