The High Court of England issued a decision to freeze the assets of Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko, the owners GNT Group and Olimpex Coupe International, which own grain port terminal "Olympex" in Odesa - reports broker of the financial company Argentem Creek Partners
American lenders Innovatus Capital Partners (Innovatus) and Argentem Creek Partners (ACP) initiated the investigation that led to this court decision.
У message states that "Innovatus and ACP continued to support GNT Group, including offering to defer loan payments following the Russian invasion," and the investigation has shown, that since February 24, 2022, the grain that was deposited in Innovatus was stored at the facilities of the Olympex grain terminal. According to the results of the investigation, the grain was looted and sold for a total amount of $25 million, without prior notification or consent of creditors.
Ana Firmato, Managing Director of Innovatus: “We find it abhorrent that the owners of the GNT Group are using the war to commit fraud. Investigations show that all the grain deposited by Innovatus was fraudulently sold by the owners of the GNT Group. As such, Innovatus had no choice but to comply with the asset freeze order to prevent further embezzlement by Mr. Naumenko and Mr. Groza."
John Patton, regional top manager at ACP: “ACP and Innovatus joined forces due to significant deficiencies in transparency and governance, as well as suspicions of large-scale misappropriation of assets and corporate wrongdoing. We discovered the transfer of assets by GNT Group members to a legal entity in Switzerland, which we understand is controlled by GNT Group CFO Dusan Denis. Once GNT Group fulfills its obligations, these issues will be resolved with minimal disruption to the grain corridor."
The court decision will give creditors the opportunity to transfer control of GNT Group's assets in the Odesa port to other operators who will continue to operate the grain corridor.
In turn, in GNT rejected accusations and state that immediately after the start of the war, on February 25, 2022, they informed Innovatus about the impossibility of ensuring the preservation of grain and its quality control due to military risks.
"Wet grain in a closed space can be explosive if a projectile hits the silo. Therefore, the management of the terminal decided to immediately take out the damaged grain for disposal. It should be noted that on May 13, 2022, the international inspection and certification company Bureau Veritas conducted an inspection of this grain and discovered and documented its spoilage. We would also like to add that an inspection by Cotecna, which was carried out in February 2022, before the start of the war, confirmed the presence of grain pledged by Innovatus at the terminal's facilities," — appointed in GNT.
GNT Group claim, that on December 13 last year confirmed their desire to repay the debt to Innovatus Capital Partners, but the consent to this from Argentem Creek Partners LP was not received.
Online GNT Group three members of the company's board are indicated:
Oleksiy Pavlenko, corporate top manager, Minister of Agrarian Policy and food in the second government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk (December 2, 2014 - April 14, 2016).
Bohdan Khomyak, a specialist with 25 years of work experience in Ukraine. Over the past five years, he facilitated commercial operations in the agricultural sector of Ukraine with a total value of over 500 million dollars. USA, providing advice to Asian, European and American companies.
Dusan Denis, CFO of GNT Group, also holds several positions in the group's holding and trading subsidiaries. Has been working with GNT for more than 10 years.
Data on beneficiaries and owners on the company's website GNT Group absent, and Serhiy Groza, whom Argentem Creek Partners indicates as the owner of the company, is not listed on the website.
About the company Olimpex Coupe International as the owner of which Argentem Creek Partners indicates Volodymyr Naumenko, 100% the founder is the company "GNT TRADE DMCC" (GNT TRADE DMCC), registered in the United Arab Emirates.
In general, Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko are connected by many companies, according to Youcontrol, so everything in this process is not as simple and unambiguous as it seems at first glance.
