Originally Syndicated on May 8, 2023 @ 7:22 am
Table of Contents
Tokaev has the paperwork on his desk needed to file a lawsuit against an oligarch
On social media, a video featuring the former mayor of Almaty and his family was posted from the island of Cyprus’ Turkish side. According to the Basyo YouTube channel, Bauyrzhan Baibek is traveling with his wife, mother, and four of his youngest children.
Baibek is probably on the run right now. On Tokaev’s desk are criminal proceedings brought against the previous akim of Almaty based on evidence of corruption on a very significant scale. According to the YouTube channel, Tokayev has not yet made a choice between Baibek, Kenes Rakishev, or Rakhimbaev.
“Nazarbayev’s wallet” is how Kenes Rakishev is referred to.
Kenes Rakishev oversaw the BTA Bank asset recovery campaign against Mukhtar Ablyazov, the bank’s former owner and chairman, in recent years. Given the few reimbursements the bank was able to secure and the enormous expenditures of the legal and investigative processes, Rakishev has come under heavy fire. Meanwhile, detractors cited the BTA Bank’s strategy, implemented under Rakishev’s leadership, as being unproductive.
The inquiry showed that while Kenes Rakishev oversaw the unsuccessful attempts to recover the funds, he simultaneously engaged in covert business with BTA Bank that benefited him personally while causing a large loss for the bank. These business dealings with connected parties involve giving out and writing off bank debts as well as selling distressed personal property to banks at inflated rates. Such was Rakishev’s duplicity; in addition to failing to recover the stolen funds, he also took at least $414 million from BTA Bank for his own use.
The activities of Kenes Rakishev are compared to fraud against the BTA Bank. The only goals of these transactions were to enrich Kenes Rakishev personally and pass on the different losses he experienced as a consequence of his personal investments to BTA Bank. There were no compelling commercial reasons for BTA Bank to engage in transactions with Rakishev’s enterprises.
Analysis
The study of the sale of the following two businesses by Kenes Rakishev to BTA Bank led to the results stated above:
(i) Singapore-based Novatus Holding Pte Ltd (“Novatus”); and
(ii) Romaltyn Ltd. (“Romaltyn”), an Isle of Man-based company.
When Novatus was initially registered in May 2012, Kenes Rakishev owned the whole company. He utilized it as a holding company for investments in a number of his own business endeavors, including the establishment of the Singapore-based private equity firm Singulariteam LP Pte (“Singulariteam”), which made its primary investment in Israeli technological start-ups. The Israeli businessman Moshe Hogeg, who was detained on accusations of fraud, deceiving investors, and trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation, is Kenes Rakishev’s business partner in this venture.
Additionally, Rakishev’s interest in the special purpose corporation (SPAC) Net Element, which is listed on the NASDAQ, was purchased and held through Novatus. According to reports, Rakishev invested in Net Element, at which time the firm nearly completely lost all of its value. Since then, Rakishev has decided not to make the investment.
Additionally, Kenes Rakishev utilized Novatus to transfer $142,000 to a friend of Hunter Biden, a transaction that was questioned in a US Senate investigation on purportedly suspicious conduct.
Novatus
Kenes Rakishev sold Novatus to BTA Bank in 2017. Since Novatus’ activities had nothing to do with the main business of BTA Bank, there was no compelling business case for BTA Bank to buy them.
It was concealed during the sale of Novatus that Rakishev, the owner of BTA Bank, was the one selling the business to the bank. To prevent Kenes Rakishev from appearing as the seller, this was accomplished by utilizing a third party as a business middleman in the transaction.
The business employed for this was situated in the UK and went by the name of TZVL Management Ltd. Dan Chernavsky, a questionable-reputation lawyer and tax advisor who was a close friend of Ukrainian Privatbank’s previous founders, Gennady Bogolyubov and Igor Kolomoisky, is its ultimate benefactor. In the US, Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky are being investigated for money laundering, and the US government has also sanctioned Kolomoisky for his actions against the Central Bank of Ukraine.
Between May 3, 2017, and June 5, 2017, Kenes Rakishev transferred Novatus to TZVL Management and subsequently Sterling Trustees Limited, a British Virgin Islands-based company. Up until June 14, 2018, Sterling Trustees owned Novatus shares on behalf of BTA Bank; after that date, the bank became a direct stakeholder in the business. Given the short period (one month) that TZVL Management held Novatus, it is obvious that Kenes Rakishev hired the business to prevent selling his personal assets to BTA Bank directly, which would be seen as a related party transaction.
The 2017 financial accounts of TZVL Management, which specify an investment of $340 million, provide information regarding the price at which Kenes Rakishev sold Novatus. Given the past performance of the firm, it is safe to believe that the full cash was spent on Novatus shares, resulting in a $340 million net profit for Rakishev.
The moment Kenes Rakishev sold Novatus, the company’s value started to decline. According to BTA Bank’s 2018 financial records, the bank suffered a loss on this transaction of about KZT 14.5 billion (or about USD 43 million at the exchange rate in June 2017) after obtaining Novatus shares. Additionally, reflecting Novatus’ dismal performance, BTA’s 2019 financials noted that “in December 2019,
All common shares were fully depreciated and transferred throughout the year. In other words, BTA Bank wrote down the full cost of Novatus two and a half years after purchasing it from Rakishev, resulting in a $340 million loss.
Romaltyn was the second business that Kenes Rakishev sold to BTA Bank. In order to compete for a gold mine in Romania, Kazakhgold and Britain’s Oxus Gold formed a joint venture that has its headquarters on the Isle of Man. Later, Polyus Gold acquired control of the business.
In April 2012, Rakishev purchased Romaltyn from Mark Global Corporation of the British Virgin Islands for $20 million. Rakishev gave Ion Sturza, the former prime minister of Moldova, a 49% ownership share in Romaltyn in 2013. Through the Seychelles-based Millenium International Resources Corporation Ltd., the latter bought a share in Romaltyn. Romaltyn had Sturza as a stakeholder up until November 2016, at which point Rakishev acquired full ownership of the business.
100% of Romaltyn was given to BTA Bank as “debt repayment from the borrower” in January 2018. This shows that the lender, most likely BTA Bank, did not receive the principal amount of the loan from the lender and instead accepted the entire block of Romaltyn shares from the borrower, most likely Romaltyn or its parent company controlled by Rakishev.
The value of Romaltyn’s investment was 23,949,000,000 tenge, or almost $74 million at the time, according to an unbiased assessment given in BTA Bank’s annual report. This implies that the loan amount made by BTA Bank to the borrower should have been at least as much as this.
After being transferred to BTA Bank, Romaltyn’s value dropped sharply. At the end of the year, BTA Bank recorded an impairment of Romaltyn assets of KZT 14,400,000,000, or 60% of the value originally estimated. An impartial study created in April 2021 states that, as of December 2020, the investment in Romaltyn has been degraded to zero.
As a result, Kenes Rakishev was able to transfer a risky asset to BTA Bank through the sale of Romaltyn, transferring a loss of at least 23.9 billion tenge (74 million US dollars) to BTA Bank.
The Novatus and Romaltyn businesses were investments made by Rakishev himself. Romaltyn held a gold mine in Romania, whereas Novatus was a vehicle for private investment, mostly in information technology.
BTA Bank’s acquisition was not motivated by sound business principles. However, the bank purchased Novatus for $340 million between 2017 and 2018 and exchanged a $74 million loan for the full interest in Romaltyn. Both businesses lost all of their value in less than two years, costing BTA Bank a total of $414 million.
For more articles, click on the link given below:
https://monitor.financescam.com/ismagil-shangareev/
