Interessant draadje.
The Latvian Connection
Part I – The Beginning
By Rick Lusitano
We are at the Global Financial Crisis, the worst economic and financial meltdown the world had seen since the Great Depression of 1929, when in February 2008 four Latvian young students from the elite business school of the University of Latvia, Rigas Ekonomikas Augstskola, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, in the Latvian capital, founded a start-up, AS OC Finanses. The school-friends were Alberts Pole, Kristaps Ozols, Māris Keišs and Aigars Kesenfeld. This company enjoyed a great success in the new Baltic enterprises community. The idea behind their company, lending small amounts to customers through the online platform, text messages and phone calls. The money didn’t stop entering in.
On 15 December 2009, the success attracted the interest of several local politically exposed persons (PEP) and business elite, ldis Arnicans, Edgar Dupats, Maris Martinson and a professional Russian ice hockey player in Moscow, Ilya Nikulin. Who joined the four founders as shareholders.
The now eight shareholders founded joint parent holding company in Malta and named it Fatcat Investments Limited, later renamed as FCI Investments Limited in autumn 2013, with the legal address of 40, Villa Fairholme Sir Augustus Bartolo Street, Malta. These new investors took the majority shares and decisive roles in the start-up.
The three new Latvian shareholders had ties to the Latvia's power elite. Edgars Dupats, then a young lawyer, in 2014 married the daughter of former Latvian prime minister Andris Skele, a local ex-oligarch with a reputation like the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Also Uldis Arnicans is a well-known businessman connected with one of Skele’s family business. Maris Martinsons, a real-estate businessman, has been involved in a major corruption scandal and criminal investigations.
During September 2011, the company was renamed as AS 4finance, perhaps in honor of the four founders. Until 9 December 2011, all seven Latvian shareholders of Malta’s Fatcat Investment Ltd were hidden behind seven companies, all registered at the same address in Belize, a Central American offshore jurisdiction, and the Russian shareholder behind a company registered in Cyprus, also known as European tax haven.
It was during December 2011 that the seven Latvian beneficial owners became owners of new Maltese companies, all with same the legal address of Fatcat Investments Ltd., which replaced the Belize companies as shareholders of Fatcat Investments Ltd. The three founders Alberts Pole, Maris Keiss and Kristaps Ozols retained five per cent of shares each with the companies AJG Partners Limited, VS Ventures Limited and LVS Limited. The fourth, Aigars Kesenfelds with ABS Holding Limited with 19.5 per cent shares, with the same participation each were Uldis Arnicans behind G-Interactive Limited, Maris Martinson behind Nessa Limited and Ilya Nikulin with the Cyprus company V.C. Vertice Consulting Limited. Seven per cent of the shares were held by Edgars Dupats in Mercalia Partners Limited.
It was also during December 2011, that the Russian billionaire Oleg Boyko decided to purchase a majority 75 per cent share in their perspective fast loans start-up, which had subsidiaries only in Lithuania, Sweden, Finland and Denmark at this time. According to a share purchase agreement dated 21 December 2011, Boyko’s Tirona Limited, a Cyprus registered company paid 55 million Euro to Fatcat Investments Limited for the purchase of the 75 per cent shares of fast loans company AS 4finance, with its headquarters in Riga, Latvia. Ownership in the major AS 4finance company was then shared by 75 per cent of Tirona Limited and 25 per cent of Fatcat Investments Ltd.
The Fatcat's Report and financial statements showed a 4.2 million Euro profit in 2010 from fast loans operations in five countries, for the same business operations in 2011 with only 92 employees, they reached almost 14 million Euro profits, without accounting the first tranche, worth 12 million, that was paid a few days after the conclusion of the deal. In the first tranche raised profits of Fatcat Investments even higher, to 26 million Euro before taxes. Maltese companies that do not appear to have one single employee and pay no significant corporate tax.
The effective taxation in Malta for Fatcat Investments was quite low for European standards. The company had 26 million Euro in profits and paid two million Euro taxes that year, which represented seven per cent. The Latvian shareholders enjoyed the benefits of the Maltese taxation system. For the year 2012, when Fatcat reached 43 million Euro in profits, the company paid only 366,762 Euro taxes on profits, which represents 0.7 per cent.
Because of some Maltese fiscal loophole, for example, at least 40.7 million Euro of Boyko’s Cyprus based Tirona Limited paid in cash to Fatcat Investments in 2012 for shares in 4finance are “exempt income” and thus without any taxation in Malta. This is confirmed by the Income Tax Return of newly renamed FCI Investments Limited filed on 8 August 2013, which reveals other tax exemptions on foreign incomes worth additional million Euro.
Martinsons and Nikulin left the company in December 2013, with the remaining six shareholders paying them 24.7 million Euro for their shares of the FCI Investments Ltd. On 15 October 2014, the companies of the three founders Alberts Pole, Maris Keiss and Kristaps Ozols left the shareholder structure of FCI Investments Ltd.
The Maltese companies controlled by Latvian and Russian beneficial owners received at least 105 million Euro from Boyko. The shareholders needed to transfer their millions to Latvia or doing investments, paying the minimum tax as possible. The way their way they found were by shareholders loans given from Maltese companies to Latvian companies owned by the same shareholders.
A second solution was found by second major shareholder Aigars Kesenfelds, who received 18 million Euro from FCI Investments to ABS Holdings. Kesenfelds opted to finance new investments and start-ups. Kesenfelds invested in a Lithuanian company UAB Mogo in 2012 and 2013, one of the subsidiaries of Mogo Finance, a start-up founded in 2012 in Latvia, that provides second-hand car loans (car leasing or hire-purchase). Kesenfelds’ ABS Holdings also gave a 2.5 million Euro credit line worth to this company in April 2014.
ABS Holding also gave loans to other companies in the Spring 2014, including Dotcom Enterprises (4.5 million Euro), Dyonne Trading (3.1 million Euro), SIA Daugalas Iela (850,000 Euro) and many others.
All these proceeds initially paid by Boyko’s Cyprus company for share in 4finance were taxed according to Maltese standards. In 2013, for example, ABS Holdings reached 12.3 million Euro in profits and paid 576,000 Euro or 4.6 per cent of taxes in Malta.
The remaining Latvian shareholders of FCI Investments tried to get money from Malta to their own bank accounts or invest it further in a similar way.
Oleg Boyko soon took full control over 4finance group, liquidated FCI Investments, and now controls the whole group through Tirona Limited (Cyprus). Boyko is hidden in the company structure behind his 75-year old relative Vera Boyko, who is the beneficial owner of 49 per cent shares of the Cyprus company, which is controlled by nominee shareholder and director Loucas Andreou. The remaining 51 per cent is distributed equally between his Latvian partners Uldis Arnicans (25.5 per cent) and Edgars Dupats (25.5 per cent), both connected to the influential Latvian Skele family.
Boyko also restructured 4finance, set up a 4finance Holding S.A. in Luxembourg and issued bonds which financed the expansion of fast loans operations in subsidiaries in more than 17 countries.
During this expansion, 4finance reached the United States of America and Canada. On 15 December 2015, started the official operations of 4finance in the United States. But on 24 September 2015, a US-based company, 4finance US Holding Inc., registered in another tax haven in Delaware were already present.
Documentation also shows that both Latvian 4finance main company and Boyko’s Tirona Limited have covertly financed fast loans to US citizens with the assistance of two Native American tribes since 2012. Although the US regulators received several complaints from 4finance US subsidiaries customers, the US federal authorities couldn’t do anything against the “online tribal payday lending companies”, as they owned by federally recognized Indian Tribes.
According to 4finance, presently they are one of Europe’s largest digital consumer lending groups, present in 16 countries, including besides Europe, the Latin America and the United States, and that had provided over EUR 6.0 billion in single payment, line of credit and instalment loans.
(to be continued...)
Aangezien op dit moment een aantal projecten nog lopen heb ik per saldo op dit moment nog niet het geld terug wat ik er feitelijk in heb gestopt. Ben eind 2018 gestopt met investeren in nieuwe projecten./u/9354/imagesmall.png?f=community)
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