Argentem Creek Partners uses officials and members of the Council for its own purposes without their consent

The Argentem Creek Partners PR team uses comments from officials and parliamentarians that do not directly relate to GNT Group in news stories specifically about the company

In Ukraine, a scandal continues between the American fund Argentem Creek Partners (ACP) and the Ukrainian holding GNT Group regarding the Odessa grain terminal. News appeared in the media almost every day with accusations against GNT Group. At the same time, as part of this black media campaign, Argentem Creek Partners used Ukrainian officials, people's deputies and experts without their knowledge.

The publication KP.UA writes about this. It is noted that ACP works with risky loans and on an ongoing basis implements the following business model: “an unscheduled demand for debt collection in a crisis situation - an aggressive media campaign against the debtor - litigation - transfer of the debtor’s assets to an interested third party.”

The Americans are implementing a similar formula in Ukraine with the assets of the GNT Group. After the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian agricultural holding was informed within 24 hours of the need for early repayment of the loan, after which an aggressive media campaign began.

Over the past months, news has appeared daily in the Ukrainian information field accusing GNT Group and its beneficiaries of tax optimization and “gray” grain exports. These news stories are allegedly based on inside information from anonymous “sources” and comments from officials and people’s deputies. However, as KP.UA notes, an interesting feature of all these comments is always the answer, which concerns the general economic situation in Ukraine, and not a specific enterprise or people.

As the publication learned, the PR team of Argentem Creek Partners uses comments from officials and parliamentarians not directly related to the GNT Group in informational occasions specifically in relation to the company. Thus, ACP PR specialists give information about the Ukrainian holding a negative context and at the same time increase its importance due to the presence of a comment from a domestic official. Thus, in a short time the following were used:

• People's Deputy, member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development Bogdan Kitsak;
• People's Deputy, member of the Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy Dmitry Solomchuk;
• People's Deputy, Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian Policy and Land Relations Petr Yurchyshyn;
• People's Deputy, Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Social Policy and Protection of the Rights of Veterans Mikhail Tsymbalyuk;
• People's Deputy, Member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense Gennady Kasai;
• officials of the National Security and Defense Council;
• Deputy of the Odessa City Council Olga Kvasnitskaya;
• General Director of the Ukrainian Agricultural Business Club Oleg Khomenko;
• President of the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation Leonid Kozachenko;
• Deputy Business Ombudsman Tatyana Korotkaya,

Economic expert Andrey Novak.

According to media reports, the lender has repeatedly been found to have engaged in unfair practices against its counterparties around the world. In particular, in addition to an aggressive black media campaign against opponents, the ACP can attract local officials and political figures to achieve its results. An entire country is currently suing ACP around the world - Kazakhstan, the huge Indonesian coal miner Berau Coal Energy, the Brazilian sugar producer GVO and others.

The black media campaign intensified after information about Argentem Creek Partners’ close ties with Russian business. Thus, since 2022, ACP has shared investments with ACG Mining Limited (Artem Volynets, former top manager of the aluminum giant Rusal, owned by Oleg Deripaska), and in 2024, Argentem Creek Partners provided a loan of $20 million to the fintech company Salmon Fedorov - “ "right hand" of Russian top manager Igor Sechin, who previously worked as vice president of a mining giant Norilsk Nickel and vice president of Rosneft, as well as Georgy Chesakov from Tinkoff Group).

“It was as part of this black media campaign that Argentem Creek Partners used Ukrainian officials, MPs and experts without their knowledge,” writes KP.UA.

The conflict between Argentem Creek Partners and GNT Group: what is happening
GNT Group is a Ukrainian stevedoring and agricultural holding. In 2019, he took out a loan of $75 million from the foreign fund ACP. And in 2021, there will be a related loan of $20 million from Innovatus Capital Partners. According to GNT, the loan was issued on the security of grain and corporate rights of the holding, the cost of which was several times higher than it. Due to the full-scale invasion, the company did not have time to pay off its debts.

Negotiations were held with the fund to restructure the loan. However, unexpectedly for GNT owners, on December 20, 2022, ACP sent a demand to return the money within two hours and began forced collection of the debt. The directors of foreign and Ukrainian holding companies were replaced. They were ACP lawyers. The legal addresses of Ukrainian companies operating in the Odessa port were also changed from Odessa to Lviv. The owners of the holding announced a raider takeover of the business, its depreciation, and an attempt at a behind-the-scenes resale by the ACP fund to a third party.

In turn, the fund accused GNT of non-transparent activities. Innovatus and ACP initiated criminal proceedings with the National Police due to the loss of pledged grain. The parties are bogged down in a multitude of counter-suits, complaints, etc. in Ukrainian and foreign jurisdictions. The final decision must be made by the London Court of International Arbitration. At the same time, Argentem is accused of trying to take away the assets of the grain terminal and transfer them to the management of the Russians.