American fund Argentem Creek Partners, which is suing for a grain terminal in Odesa, is financing the business of Russians close to Rosneft - foreign media

The American investment fund Argentem Creek Partners (ACP) has provided a $20 million venture capital loan to Salmon, a Philippine fintech company co-founded by Russian businessmen Pavel Fedorov and Georgy Chesakov. These Russians held senior positions in the sanctioned Tinkoff Group, Rosneft, and worked for the Russian government. This is reported by the French edition Intelligence Online, UNN writes.

According to the CRA website, this loan was the largest ever venture capital loan to a Series A technology company in the Philippines and propelled Salmon to the position of one of the fastest growing fintech companies in Southeast Asia. In January 2024, Salmon acquired Rural Bank of Santa Rosa and obtained a banking license in the Philippines. This will allow the Russian firm to expand its lending operations in the country.

The publication reminds that ACP, founded by Daniel Chapman, "an American entrepreneur with extensive connections in the Russian-speaking world", has been enthusiastically positioning itself as a leading investor in Ukraine since the outbreak of the war. Therefore, according to French journalists, its financing of the Russian project looks more than strange. After all, despite the fact that Salmon is positioned as a startup, according to Intelligence Online , it is run by powerful Russian businessmen.

In particular, Salmon's co-founder and CEO Georgy Chesakov built his entire career in the Tinkoff Group, whose main asset, Tinkoff Bank, was included in the tenth package of EU sanctions against Russia in early 2023 . Until the spring of 2022, he headed the international growth department.

From November 2021 to March 2022, Pavel Fedorov was a co-chairman of the board of the same Tinkoff Group. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President of the mining giant Norilsk Nickel and Vice President of Rosneft, an oil company that is 70% owned by the Russian Federation.

According to Intelligence Online, after Fedorov left his position at Rosneft, "he remained at the heart of the company in a more informal position as the right-hand man of its chairman and CEO, Igor Sechin, who has been one of Vladimir Putin's most loyal officials since their time together in the St. Petersburg mayor's office in the 1990s."

After Rosneft, Fedorov also served as Deputy Minister of Energy, responsible for the oil and gas sector.

However, as French journalists have pointed out, ACP and Salmon's press releases make no mention of their embarrassing past proximity to Russian sanctioned businesses or the government.

Instead, the ASP press service quotes the words of the fund's president and co-director Maarten Thurlow: "Argentem Creek Partners is pleased to become an important component of Salmon's capital structure. We are a long-term value-creating investor and are pleased to support Salmon in their ambitious drive to expand financial inclusion in the region...".

As the publication reminds, ASP is conducting a fierce lobbying campaign and litigation for the assets of the Ukrainian holding GNT Group, which are mainly concentrated in the grain terminal of the Odesa Commercial Sea Port.

Earlier, the beneficiaries of GNT Group, Serhiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko , statedthat at the end of 2022, the fund began a raider seizure of the holding's business as part of a loan dispute. According to them, all the actions of the DIA are aimed at deliberately reducing the value of assets in order to obtain the entire business of the group at the lowest price, with its subsequent resale. This situation also threatened the operation of the grain corridor in the winter and fall of 2023.

Journalists also published informationthat in November 2022, John Patton met in Vienna with the chairman of the Supervisory Board of UkraineInvest and MP from the Servant of the People party, David Arakhamia. At the time, as reported by the media , Arakhamia could have been negotiating the possible sale of GNT Group's business to a third party. The MP did not respond to a request to refute this information.

Recently, John Patton, Regional Director of the USAID Foundation, also said in an interview with the mediathat "the Ukrainian authorities are aware of our case and are interested in helping. In particular, I see that there is interest from the President's Office. We have had numerous meetings during which the leaders of the Office have expressed their clear support".

On March 13, 2024, the District Court of Nicosia (Cyprus) revoked the order appointing a provisional liquidator in G.N. Terminal Enterprises Limited (Cyprus; parent company of GNT Group). The liquidator was unlawfully appointed on March 10, 2023, at the request of the creditor Argentem Creek Partners (ACP). The judges also canceled all decisions made by the liquidator.