Source
The company Batagon International, which is appearing in Republika Srpska as an investor in several mostly unsuccessful projects, has created a financial turmoil in Switzerland. Due to the suspicious purchase of the Battery Factory Sombor (FAS), which was realized by Batagon through the investment company Ruvercap from Zurich, the work of certain banks and pension funds in Switzerland was endangered.
Swiss media have written in recent months about Ruvercap’s founders Jon Turnes & Marc Clapasson suspicious investments in the Western Balkans, citing financial transactions with Batagon owned by Dalibor Matic, who, according to media reports, was arrested in Switzerland on suspicion of involvement in laundering. money.
VOICE reminds that Matić bought the Battery Factory in Sombor from bankruptcy at the end of 2017 for 7.35 million euros. However, the Swiss media write that “Batagon” actually bought the Battery Factory at the end of 2017 through Ruvercap.
The transaction included a line of credit plus a factory as collateral. But investors doubt whether Batagon used the said amount of 63.7 million euros in full to buy“, Writes the Swiss portal finews.ch.
FAS was sold out of bankruptcy only after the sixth attempt. The first sale price was 3.6 million euros and, apart from the representatives of former workers in the Board of Creditors, was unacceptable for the other four members of the board. The same case was with Batagon’s offer of 4.5 and 5.05 million euros, respectively. Washington’s IFC (a branch of the World Bank) accepted offers of six and later seven million euros, but the sale failed even then because the remaining three board members were against.
Only the price of 7.35 million euros was accepted by the representative of Mediolanum Invest (they bought the receivables of Intesa Bank), so on December 1, 2019, the sale of FAS from bankruptcy was made official. Komercijalna Banka abstained, while a representative of Turkey’s Hall Bank voted against the sale.
With the sale of FAS, all separate creditors (IFC, Hall Bank, Komercijalna Bank and Mediolanum Invest) removed the mortgage from the factory’s property. On December 20, the Commercial Court in Sombor was informed by the bankruptcy trustee Predrag Ljubović that Batagon had paid 7.35 million euros the day before. Accordingly, on January 17, 2018, the Commercial Court issued a decision to suspend the bankruptcy procedure, and for Batagon to become the owner of the entire property without any obligations to other creditors or tax authorities.
The new owner of the factory, Dalibor Matić, rarely appeared during the sale process. His authorized representative was lawyer Dejan Simić, known to the general public for aferi Suitcase. This is a case from 2006, when Simić, as the then vice-governor of the National Bank of Serbia, was accused of asking the representatives of the Danube TBI group for a bribe of two million euros in order to obtain the NBS license for financial leasing.
The media reported that the then Minister of the Interior, Ivica Dačić, was also involved in the affair. Simic claimed that Dacic left his apartment 15 minutes before the police broke in and found a suitcase with 100,000 euros. Simic was acquitted in 2011.
Some Swiss pension funds are in trouble due to investments in Ruvercap
Swiss portal insideparadeplatz.ch writes that due to poor business Ruvercap could suffer huge losses. It also included Swiss pension funds, which are now losing a lot of money.
In this case alone, there is talk of a loss of CHF 500 million. It could be more“, An insider source told the portal.
„Ruvercap had three funds. They financed so-called factoring and lending. This actually means that they were involved in pre-financing supplier accounts. The story revolved around three funds located in Ireland: one in Swiss francs, one in euros and one in US dollars“, Writes the Swiss portal, for which the representatives of Ruvercap did not want to comment on the new financial crisis.
It is a fund Quayside Fund Management from Ireland, managed by the Central Bank of Ireland. The fund was established in 2014 and operates as an alternative investment fund for placements within the European Economic Area (EEA).
VOICE asked a number of questions to the management of that Irish fund regarding the business with the Swiss Ruvercap, however – no answers were given.. As in the case of Swiss portals that were interested in the losses incurred by Ruvercap’s business, VOICE remained deprived of that, as well as questions regarding the possible termination of cooperation with the Swiss company and its investments in the Western Balkans.
In addition to the damage that this Irish fund, the portal, obviously suffered luzernerzeitung.ch it also tells the story of the losses incurred in the pension fund of the city of Zug (PK), where they could not guess what financial result their investment in Ruvercap’s financial instruments would have. Given the newly incurred debts of at least 500 million euros, the pension fund of the city of Zug is experiencing a financial shock.
PK shifted its investment strategy to sustainable investments, to which Ruvercap funds also belonged. According to the report of the president of the PC, Karl Kobelt, they expected a good return of money, but it happened that in 2019 they experienced a loss of 2.5 million Swiss francs. In 2019, PK had 1,139 active insured persons and 458 pensioners. The balance sheet total was CHF 534 million.
And while in Switzerland the financial ball has started to unravel, in Serbia there are no indications of such a thing. Moreover, the Battery Factory, as they write the media there, it also worked during the state of emergency, but with a reduced volume, and exported batteries to the European and Russian markets.
Ruvercap resigns due to wrong investments in the Balkans
Batagon tried to buy companies in BiH through the RS Government
The media in Bosnia and Herzegovina also wrote a lot about Batagon, mostly about the intentions to take over companies that have long been interesting to other companies in BiH. One of them is also Pavgord from Foča, which until recently, along with Batagon and Galens Invest, was among the largest shareholders of Pavlović Bank (now Naša banka). CAPITAL announced at the end of January last year that Batagon was buying the claims of the Government of the Republika Srpska against Aluminum and takes over the company for 43 million euros. However, this transaction did not take place, so it is the entity government terminated the contract with Batagon. Portal CAPITAL He also wrote in the middle of last year about Batagon’s intentions to buy the claims that Pavgord from Foča has towards the Birač Alumina Factory and its daughter companies, but to pay that purchase to Alumina in the total amount of 122.6 million convertible marks, in 24 equal installments. It was later announced that Batagon is not giving up on buying Alumina and Birač and accused the court in Zvornik of that, which disputed the contract that the company had with the Government of the Republic of Srpska and the payment of 43 million euros to the budget. The aforementioned Pavgord from Foča has been trying for years to enter the possession of Birča, from which Ukio Bank from Lithuania is claiming 155 million KM. Pavgord bought receivables from Ukio Bank for around KM 12.5 million, but was never registered as a creditor. Namely, the bankruptcy trustee of Birča claims that the purchase agreement between Pavgord and Ukio Bank states claims of 195 million KM, while Ukio Bank claims that only 122 million KM of claims from Birač to Pavgord have been transferred.