News round-up, July 28, 2023
We reached a new record of 1800 visitors in the United States yesterday, surpassing 1600 visitors daily. We were able to reach this milestone without any external assistance (booster), relying completely on our dedication, objectivity, and hard work..
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We reached a new record of 1800 visitors in the United States yesterday, surpassing 1600 visitors daily. We were able to reach this milestone without any external assistance (booster), relying completely on our dedication, objectivity, and hard work.. 〰️
The Personality of the Day
“Abramovich” journeyed 858 km from the Saratov catacombs to Kremlin's champagne glasses.
The enigmatic figure, Roman Abramovich, is well-known for his business and survival skills. His journey to success began long before that. In the late 1990s, Abramovich embraced his elusive persona, likened to that of a —-silver Siberian wolf—-. He skillfully evaded the spotlight, refusing to be photographed and instead represented through rough illustrations. So legendary was his secrecy that a reward of 1 million roubles was offered for a genuine photograph of him. Eventually, a blurry image surfaced, catapulting Abramovich into fame.
Beneath his mysterious facade, Abramovich artfully cultivated influential alliances. Notably, he formed a close bond with Tatyana Dyachenko, the daughter of President Boris Yeltsin. This relationship not only facilitated his ascension in Russian politics but also in society at large. With such powerful connections and his own shrewdness, Abramovich became a significant figure in the Russian elite.
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Insight: Obscure traders ship half Russia's oil exports to India, China after sanctions
To export crude oil to Asia, Moscow relies on little-known trading companies. According to data gathered from conversations with ten trading sources, analysis from Kpler, and non-public information from Refinitiv and shipping companies, 40 intermediaries were involved in Russian oil trading between March and June.
By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Nidhi Verma/Editions by Germán & Co, July 27, 2023Biden’s ‘Made in America’ Pledge Collides With His Climate Goals
Companies, lawmakers are trying to influence how the government gives out billions in subsidies
WSJ by Andrew Duehren, July 26, 2023 Trump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue.
Gregory Garrabrants, a GOP donor and CEO of online Axos Bank, approved the loans after the former president’s main lender had cut ties.
The Washington Post by Michael Kranish, July 27, 2023 Roman Abramovich the 'invisible man,' a business and survival specialist
One million roubles for a photograph of him... A blurry photo eventually emerged, making Abramovich famous...
By Lucas Minisini (London, New York, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Benoît Vitkine (Moscow, correspondent) and Aureliano Tonet (London, Rome, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Published yesterday of 26 of July, 2023.US power regulator to weigh plans to speed up green energy connection
Reuters by Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom, July 27, 2023
Andrés Gluski, the CEO & President of AES He's responsible for creating social responsibility and sustainability at AES
Andrés Gluski is the leader who introduced corporate social responsibility as a priority for AES. The result of these efforts has been extraordinary: AES was named one of the "World's Most Ethical Companies" by the Ethisphere Institute and has received this distinction for four consecutive years. There is nothing more to say about his leadership; it is commendable. In addition, he set goals for the company that culminated in the inclusion of the company in the North American Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
Source: Moneyinc.com
Image: Word "Oil" and stock graph are seen through magnifier displayed in this illustration taken September 4, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationInsight: Obscure traders ship half Russia's oil exports to India, China after sanctions
To export crude oil to Asia, Moscow relies on little-known trading companies. According to data gathered from conversations with ten trading sources, analysis from Kpler, and non-public information from Refinitiv and shipping companies, 40 intermediaries were involved in Russian oil trading between March and June.
REUTERS By Dmitry Zhdannikov and Nidhi Verma/Editions by Germán & Co, July 27, 2023MOSCOW/LONDON/NEW DELHI, July 27 (Reuters) - A Liberian-flagged oil tanker set sail in May from Russia's Ust-Luga port carrying crude on behalf of a little-known trading company based in Hong Kong. Before the ship had even reached its destination in India, the cargo changed hands.
The new owner of the 100,000 tonnes of Urals crude carried on the Leopard I was a similarly low-profile outfit, Guron Trading, also based in Hong Kong, according two trading sources.
The number of little-known trading firms relied on by Moscow to export large volumes of crude exports to Asia has mushroomed in recent months, since sanctions over the Ukraine war led major oil firms and commodity houses to withdraw from business with producers in Russia, reporting by Reuters has found.At least 40 middlemen, including companies with no prior record of involvement in the business, handled Russian oil trading between March and June, according to a Reuters tally after speaking to 10 trading sources along with analysts from think-tank Kpler and analysing data from Refinitiv and the non-public books of shipping companies.
The new players have shipped at least half of Russia’s overall crude and refined products exports of 6-8 million barrels per day (bpd) on average this year, turning the little-known companies collectively into some of the world's largest oil traders, according to Reuters calculations based on private information from the 10 trading sources and Eikon data.
The companies began appearing after Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a special military operation, with as many as 30 middlemen involved in trades over the course of last year, according to the tally.
The network marks a major departure from the handful of well-established oil majors such as BP and Shell and top trading houses including Vitol, Glencore, Trafigura and Gunvor that handled Russian crude and oil products for decades.
There is no suggestion the trades break sanctions, although they may make it difficult for sanctions enforcement agencies in Europe and the United States to track Russian oil transactions and prices.
Earlier this month, Urals prices jumped above a price cap of $60 a barrel on Russian exports imposed by the Group of Seven nations, Australia and the European Union from Dec. 5 that was intended to punish firms involved in any trade above that level.
When prices are above the cap, the rapidly changing trading network could make it hard to identify those involved in moving the oil, five traders involved in handling Russian oil said.
The reporting shows that in May, Russia, one of the world's top three oil producers, supplied record volumes to China and India, which have not imposed sanctions on Moscow and became its leading buyers after sanctions by Europe, the United States and other powers limited their own purchases.
Neither Guron Trading or Bellatrix Energy, the company that originally chartered the Leopard I and bought the cargo from Russian oil company Rosneft, responded to requests for comment. Rosneft did not respond to questions.
The websites for Guron Trading and Bellatrix Energy appeared to have been taken down recently. Both were online prior to the companies being contacted by Reuters.
TRADING AT SEA
Along with the emergence of the new companies, once rare multiple trades while ships are at sea have become widespread, the five sources involved in Russian oil trading said. The sources described at least 10 such trades, which happen with little public documentation and aim to make Russia's oil exports more difficult to track, they said.
One buyer of Russian oil likened the rise and fall of the new traders to the brief careers of TikTok stars, while another trader described a "kaleidoscope" of new players. In some cases, a single cargo will pass through at least three traders, the oil buyer said.
Under the previous system, oil cargoes were generally handled by one well-known trader from source to destination.
Reuters could not establish the ultimate owners of the new trading companies.
The growing network of pop-up traders overlaps with a booming market for old oil tankers supplied by new companies to carry Russian oil that Western shippers are avoiding.
The new trading network and practices raise financial risks for Russian oil companies dealing with unknown entities with limited credit history.
Some of the companies that emerged as major traders of Russian oil last year, such as Coral Energy and Everest Energy, have since exited the business.
Responding to questions from Reuters, both denied they left the trade because of sanctions risks. Everest said "it was a strategic business decision based on various factors specific to our company". Coral said "we made a decision to source outside of Russia thanks to the diversified footprint in MENA region'.
The U.S. Treasury department's sanctions enforcement agency, OFAC, and its EU and UK counterparts did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
In July, a U.S. Treasury official said sanctions were designed to keep Russian oil in the market, dampening prices for consumers while limiting oil revenues Moscow uses to finance the war in Ukraine.
"We recognise that (sanctions on Russia are) going to change the shape and structure of the Russian oil markets," the official told reporters.
The official also said Washington was unconcerned that sanctions were resulting in more trades in currencies other than the dollar - after a rise in the use of yuan and UAE dirham to settle Russian oil transactions as Moscow finds itself shut out from international banks.
MULTI-YEAR EXPORT HIGH
Owned and operated by the Dubai-based Leopard I Shipping, the Leopard I arrived at Visakhapatnam port on June 15, where Indian refiner Hindustan Petroleum took delivery of the cargo from Guron Trading, data from the two trading sources showed.
Hindustan Petroleum didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The emerging companies have played a key role in keeping Russia's oil exports moving, and even growing, as its leading crude producers Rosneft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft diverted shipments to India and China.
Helped by this network, Russian oil exports from all sea ports reached a multi-year high in April and May at nearly 4 million bpd, according to Reuters calculations based on polling of 10 traders as well as Russian port loading programmes and Refinitiv data.
In May, Russian seaborne oil supplies to India, which was a rare buyer of Russian oil before the war, reached a record of 1.95 million bpd while China imported 2.29 million bpd.
Only Lukoil continues to market oil through its trading division - Litasco - which it relocated to Dubai from Geneva. The other companies sell to the new trading firms, which are mostly registered in China, Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai, according to the five sources and local public company registers.
From March to June, the top traders who bought oil from Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft included Dubai-based Petroruss, Hong Kong registered Guron Trading, Bellatrix Energy and Covart Energy, Dubai-registered Voliton, Demex Trading, Nestor Trading, Orion Energy and Singapore-headquartered Patera, according to the five traders, shipping data and company registers.
Some companies, such as Voliton, had no websites or contact numbers that Reuters could find. None of the others responded to requests for comments.
Media representatives for Rosneft, Surgutneftegaz and Gazprom Neft didn't answer Reuters requests for comment.
PAYMENT DELAYS
The strategy brings risk for Russian producers. Venezuela, which uses a similar system to move oil, has suffered payment problems, fraud and losses.
While there have been no reports to date of non-payment, delays have caused some problems, the five traders involved in the Russian oil business said.Russian exporters waited between three to five months to get paid after their cargoes sailed, the sources said. Normally, buyers pay for the cargoes about a month after the ship sails, they said.
One source said such delays created a fiscal gap for exporters who were having to pay taxes to the Russian state before even being paid for their oil.
A source with one major Russian oil company said his company was prepared to deal with higher credit risks from buyers for the sake of having stable and rising oil exports.
"Last year, we were facing output cuts as marketing was bad. Now it's alright – we have buyers, we have sales," the source said.
Reporting by Reuters in MOSCOW, Dmitry Zhdannikov in LONDON and Nidhi Verma in NEW DELHI. Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in Washington and Laura Sanicola in New York; Editing by Simon Webb and Frank Jack Daniel
Image by Germán & Co via ShutterstockBiden’s ‘Made in America’ Pledge Collides With His Climate Goals
Companies, lawmakers are trying to influence how the government gives out billions in subsidies
WSJ by Andrew Duehren, July 26, 2023 WASHINGTON—The Biden administration’s plans to quickly reduce carbon emissions are colliding with its pledge to revitalize manufacturing in the U.S.
The Inflation Reduction Act unleashed a gusher of tax breaks and credits for producing clean energy, purchasing electric vehicles and developing new low-carbon technology. Many of the incentives require companies to source materials for the projects from the U.S., setting off a lobbying campaign to shape how the Biden administration defines “made in America.”
The debate pits some U.S. manufacturers and lawmakers, who want to strictly enforce the law’s requirements that many parts and materials come from the U.S., against automakers and foreign allies who warn that could make it more expensive to deploy technology lowering carbon emissions.
In the latest salvo, a group of the largest steelmakers in the U.S., as well as the United Steelworkers union, criticized the Treasury Department’s proposed approach to a bonus tax credit for clean-energy projects that rely largely on U.S.-made metal and components.
They argue that the department’s treatment of a key component of solar panels would let firms use steel from abroad and still qualify for the 10% credit, which would be available on top of other subsidies for building solar and wind farms.
President Biden has courted unions such as the United Steelworkers. PHOTO: JEFF SWENSEN/GETTY IMAGES
“If the current Guidance were to be made final, it would significantly damage U.S. domestic steel producers, putting at risk 1.5 million tons of production and jeopardizing the livelihoods of millions of Americans who depend on our industry,” wrote the union and the companies, including U.S. Steel and Nucor.
The group sent the letter, which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel on Tuesday.
“We’re going to refine and look at the comments that we get, but directionally, we’re seeing firms make decisions to make investments in the United States to get access to the domestic-content boost,” Wally Adeyemo, deputy Treasury secretary, said.
China is the dominant supplier of many clean-energy products, as well as the largest global producer of steel by far. The Biden administration is seeking to reduce U.S. dependence on China in key areas, but it has at times found its goals at odds as it irons out the details of tax incentives offered under the IRA.
President Biden has made rebuilding American manufacturing a central talking point in his re-election bid. He has courted unions such as the United Steelworkers, who endorsed him in 2020, and he has tried to win back rank-and-file union members who moved toward the Republican Party in recent years.
At the same time, lowering carbon emissions is another priority for the Biden administration. Imports from China are often cheaper for companies trying to stand up new clean-energy facilities in the U.S. The domestic-sourcing rules have also unnerved allies in Europe and Asia, who say the subsidies for U.S.-made components will hurt their products.
“There’s a general theme where they are clearly trying to balance the two goals but the leaning has historically been towards decarbonization,” said Kevin Book, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners.
At issue for the steel industry is the Treasury Department’s classification of photovoltaic trackers, which rotate solar panels so they follow the sun’s movement over the course of the day. In guidance released in May, the department said those trackers were a “manufactured product,” meaning they could include foreign metals and still potentially qualify for the bonus credit.
The steelmakers want the metal used to build the trackers to instead be deemed as “iron and steel products,” which must come from the U.S. in order for the project to be eligible for the incentive.
“Categorization of tracking systems as manufactured products would permit many of the structural steel components of new solar projects in the U.S. to be imported from China,” the companies said.
The Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents companies that develop solar farms, praised Treasury’s guidance when it was released in May. The group’s CEO said Treasury’s approach would “spark a flood of investment in American-made clean energy equipment and components.”
Other battles over IRA subsidies have involved electric vehicles. For example, for consumers to get the full $7,500 tax credit to buy an EV, much of the minerals in its battery must come from the U.S. or a country with a free-trade agreement with the U.S.
Many close allies, however, don’t have traditional free-trade agreements with the U.S. To get around that, administration officials crafted a special deal with Japan for minerals used in clean-energy technologies, and they are in talks with others about similar arrangements.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), a centrist whose support was critical to the passage of the climate law, has repeatedly lambasted the Treasury Department’s implementation of the electric-vehicle tax credit, including criticizing its decision to consider Japan a free-trade partner.
Automakers, including Ford Motor, have pushed for looser interpretations, including a requirement that none of an EV battery’s minerals or components be linked to a “foreign entity of concern,” which could potentially include any Chinese company. Ford has joined with China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology to build a battery factory in Michigan.
Yellen said in a recent interview that the climate law’s goals of reducing emissions and boosting domestic production can be difficult to navigate.
“We want to see a lot of electric vehicles be on the road,” she said. “But having more resilient supply chains is also clearly a goal of the legislation, and sometimes the two things do come into tension.”
The AES Corporation's Andes Solar IIb
The facility's start-up in the region of Antofagasta, Chile, represents a —-unique—- milestone in the renewable energy sector. With an installed capacity of 180 MW and 112 MW of five-hour duration energy storage, this facility is now the largest system of its kind in Latin America. The Andes Solar IIb facility's capacity comprises 170 MW of bifacial solar panels and 10 MW of 5B's Maverick technology.
The construction of this facility utilized Maverick technology and pre-made modular components, resulting in a 33% reduction in installation time compared to other traditional solar systems. Adding Andes Solar IIb to AES Andes brings the total number of solar facilities managed in the Antofagasta region to 429 MW.
Reaffirming its commitment to sustainable and efficient power generation, AES Corporation continues to make significant strides in the renewable energy sector.
Source media editing by Germán & CoTrump needed $225 million. A little-known bank came to the rescue.
Gregory Garrabrants, a GOP donor and CEO of online Axos Bank, approved the loans after the former president’s main lender had cut ties.
The Washington Post by Michael Kranish, July 27, 2023 Gregory Garrabrants is president and CEO of Axos Bank, which made two loans worth $225 million to Donald Trump in 2022 after the former president's main lender and several of his banks had cut ties with him. (Sandy Huffaker)
SAN DIEGO — As Donald Trump considered another White House run last year, his company’s finances were at risk of spiraling into crisis.
The former president’s longtime lender and several banks with his deposits had cut ties in the days around the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, at a time when Trump had hundreds of millions in loans coming due. In February 2022, the accounting firm that had worked for him for two decades dropped Trump and advised against relying on his “statement of financial condition,” a metric banks use to evaluate the risks of a loan.
Unless he found a new lender, Trump’s business empire could have been in jeopardy.
Then a new partner came to the rescue: A little known, online-only financial firm headquartered in a suburban San Diego office park.
Axos Bank, formerly known as Bank of Internet USA, had grown from one of the first digital banks into a profitable, publicly traded company in part by specializing in loans to borrowers other banks had shied away from — all while navigating federal regulator scrutiny over its internal operations and a congressional hearing that cited its involvement in high interest rates on some loans.
One day after the warning by Trump’s accounting firm became public, Axos’s blunt-spoken president and CEO — a Republican donor named Gregory Garrabrants — signed off on a $100 million loan for Trump Tower, the 58-story Manhattan skyscraper that had long been Trump’s home and base of operations, according to the bank.
Three months later, Garrabrants approved a second deal that provided $125 million for Trump’s Doral resort, a sprawling golf course complex in Miami-Dade County he had owned since 2012. Axos also financed part of a loan that helped facilitate the $375 million purchase of Trump’s D.C. hotel by a group of investors.
The Axos loans to Trump were vital to stabilizing his post-presidential finances and enabling him to mount the campaign that now has him leading the GOP pack for the 2024 presidential nomination, according to disclosure records, loan documents and financial experts.
“It was crucial … that someone gave him credit or he could have had loans going into foreclosure,” said Bert Ely, a longtime independent banking analyst. “And that was also an important factor for him politically.”
Former president Donald Trump speaks to staff and reporters aboard his airplane on June 10. “I don’t need banks,” Trump said in April, while not mentioning the Axos loans. “I have a lot of cash. I built a great business with my family.” (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The loans have drawn scrutiny from New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) as part of her broader suit that accuses Trump of “falsifying” records to inflate the value of his properties on financial statements to obtain earlier loans at lower interest rates. Trump “sought to avoid submitting a statement of financial condition” to Axos and instead pushed the bank to calculate his worth, James asserted in the suit, which does not accuse Axos of wrongdoing.
For more than a year, Garrabrants, 51, has refrained from speaking publicly about his decision to approve the loans. But in his first interview about the matter, he told The Washington Post in June at the bank’s headquarters and a telephone follow-up in July that the deals had nothing to do with his Republican politics. He said he made the loans because they will be profitable for his bank, adding that he did not agree with other bankers who stayed away from Trump due to allegations that he had incited the insurrection or concerns about his honesty.
It was “not my job or my role” to judge Trump’s actions, said Garrabrants, who donated $9,600 to support Trump’s 2020 campaign but said he’s never met the former president, dealing instead with Trump’s son Eric, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization.
The $100 million Trump Tower loan was made at a 4.25 percent interest rate and the $125 million loan for the Doral property at a 4.9 percent interest rate, with both maturing in 2032, according to property records. The rates are within the range of commercial loans during that period, according to Federal Reserve data, and came before much of the interest rate spike occurred last year; public records do not say whether the rates will change over the life of the loan, which analysts said makes it difficult to directly compare them to other commercial loans.
Garrabrants declined to discuss some details of the loans, including the long-term interest rate or how they are secured, while saying they were done on “market terms.” The Trump loans, which represent about 1 percent of the bank’s $20 billion in assets, are structured to guarantee profits for Axos, Garrabrants said.
“It wouldn’t matter if I was friends with someone, I’m not going to make a loan that’s no good,” he said. “I don’t like anyone that much.”
When he left the White House, Trump’s businesses faced head winds. Trump Tower was put on a “watch list,” an indication of concern about the ability to repay a loan as its occupancy rate fell, according to a Wells Fargo analysis reported by Bloomberg. (Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post)
As president, Trump tried to head off claims of potential conflicts of interest with his business by handing control of the family firm to his son and pledging to avoid deals with foreign entities. But those rules no longer apply post-presidency, and Trump and his family have struck up significant business with Saudi Arabia and other partners abroad in the last two years.
If Trump returns to the White House, Axos could face intensifying scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers about the loan terms, his relationship with the bank and its treatment by regulators, observers said.
In his interview with The Post, Garrabrants rejected James’s claims that Trump had sought to avoid providing certain financial information when applying for Axos loans, saying he received all relevant details he needed to review the deals.
“He never refused any information we asked for,” Garrabrants said. “We asked for a series of items in a specific format … and he delivered the items in the specific format we asked for.”
Garrabrants declined to comment when asked if he or the bank had been contacted by anyone from James’s office regarding her case against Trump.
Trump and his spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. He has denied James’s allegations and described her lawsuit as a political attack. The former president has recently downplayed the importance of loans to his finances.
“I don’t need banks,” Trump said in April, while not mentioning the Axos loans. “I have a lot of cash. I built a great business with my family.”
Edward Hemmelgarn, who closely follows Axos as president of Shaker Investments, which invests in the bank, said it likely was able to secure the loans with much stiffer terms than Trump usually accepts because of his urgent need for a lender.
“I assume the only reason Donald Trump was willing to put up with it is because no one else was willing to make a loan,” Hemmelgarn said, adding, “I am assuming the bank has been very careful about this because of the high profile of Donald Trump.”
‘It was the banks’ problem’
Trump had a long history of relying on banks for hefty loans to shore up his business, shifting the risk to others as much as possible.
While portraying himself as a business genius, Trump filed six corporate bankruptcies. He created a publicly traded company that eventually saw its share price tumble from $36 to 17 cents. By the early 1990s, long before he got into politics or starred on reality TV, Trump faced numerous financial crises as he tried to keep afloat a New York-based real estate empire.
So when he first came to Deutsche Bank in the 1990s seeking massive loans, a managing director at the bank, Mike Offit, knew it was a risk.
“He’d had problems with a bunch of properties,” Offit recalled in an interview. “Your immediate response is, 'God, why would I want to get involved in that?’”
But after examining a proposed $125 million loan on a New York City office building and a separate deal on a condominium project, Offit calculated that the reward vastly outweighed the risk and signed off.
“You look at the property and if the property is great and meets the criteria for making a loan, absent some horrific reason not to, you make it because that’s how you make money,” he said. The deal was so favorable that Offit concluded “I can make 10 times the normal profit” at a low risk.
Donald Trump, center, and George Ditomassi, right, president of Milton Bradley, stand behind the board game, “Trump, The Game,” at a news conference in New York on Feb. 7, 1989. (Mario Suriani/AP)
Both deals proved hugely profitable for the bank, said Offit, who left Deutsche in 1999. With Deutsche on his side, Trump rebuilt his brand and played the starring role in “The Apprentice,” the NBC series that presented precisely the titan image he wanted the world to see.
But the relationship soured after Offit left Deutsche and the 2008 financial crisis crashed real estate values. Facing difficulties repaying a massive loan on a 92-story Chicago tower, Trump sued Deutsche Bank by claiming it helped to cause the recession, and the bank countersued, noting that Trump had written in a book of his about his loans, “I figured it was the banks’ problem, not mine. What the hell did I care?”
After resolving the suit, Trump later borrowed another $170 million from Deutsche for his D.C. hotel. But the bank, which declined to comment for this story, finally refused his request for another $50 million in 2016, citing his presidential run as posing “an unacceptable level of reputation risk.”
And after Trump sought reelection in 2020, Deutsche cut ties with him, citing his company’s failure to answer the bank’s questions about James’s investigation — a decision made public after the Jan. 6 attack.
Signature Bank, where Trump had deposits, announced shortly after Jan. 6 that it was closing his account and urged Trump to resign, according to an archived version of its website. Two other banks where Trump held deposits also closed his accounts after the attack on the Capitol, The Post reported.
As he left the White House, Trump’s businesses also faced head winds. Trump Tower was put on a “watch list,” an indication of concern about the ability to repay a loan as its occupancy rate fell, according to a Wells Fargo analysis reported by Bloomberg. His Doral resort, meanwhile, had seen its revenue plummet by more than 40 percent in 2020, according to Forbes.
By February 2022, when his accounting firm, Mazars, issued its warning about Trump’s financial statements and ended its relationship with him, the former president’s family company faced having to repay more than $300 million to Deutsche and $55 million to another bank, according to Trump’s financial disclosure and other public records.
Failing to pay, in the worst case scenario, could have led to lawsuits and foreclosures.
Growing scrutiny into practices
As Trump searched for a new lender in the months after Jan. 6. A broker came to an Axos official with a proposal: giving Trump a new $100 million loan on Trump Tower.
Unlike many other bankers, Garrabrants was not put off by the risk. That’s how he’d made his career.
A former attorney who had clerked for a Republican-appointed federal judge, Garrabrants was a senior vice president of IndyMac bank before it failed during the 2008 housing collapse. He told the Los Angeles Business Journal that “they got caught on the wrong side of the tsunami,” leading the bank to be undercapitalized, a lesson that would guide his career. He said his role at IndyMac was in a division unrelated to the problems that led to the failure.
Garrabrants was appointed CEO and president of Bank of Internet in October 2007, helping boost the decade-old bank into a formidable institution by continuing to forego storefront locations and leaning into a lower cost, online-only operation. But Garrabrants’s approach drew intensifying scrutiny.
A former attorney who had clerked for a Republican-appointed federal judge, Garrabrants was a senior vice president of IndyMac bank before it failed during the 2008 housing collapse. He said his role at IndyMac was in a division unrelated to the problems that led to the failure. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
In 2016, the Houston Municipal Pension System filed a shareholder suit alleging in part that years earlier the bank and Garrabrants were “routinely overriding … internal controls.” The suit, which echoed some allegations in a lawsuit filed by a former Axos auditor, said the bank “issued loans to foreign nationals who had criminal or suspicious background” and claimed Garrabrants had threatened to “destroy” an ex-employee if they shared damaging information. A lawyer for the pension system declined to comment.
The bank denied the allegations, saying it had never revised a financial statement, had received “clean audits” and won approvals from regulators. Last year it settled the case for $14 million without admitting wrongdoing, according to court filings and the bank. Garrabrants said in the interview that the bank’s insurance company paid the settlement, which he said was less than the potential cost of litigation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury Department also opened probes into matters related to the bank’s practices, according to public documents; both were closed without charges.
After the SEC closed its probe in 2017, Garrabrants’s bank purchased an interest in a $57 million loan to Fortress Investment Group, which had backed a project linked to the family firm of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top White House adviser, according to the bank and contemporaneous media reports. Asked by reporters at the time about whether there was any connection between the loan and the SEC’s decision, Garrabrants described the claim as a “tin-hat conspiracy.” The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.
Garrabrants told The Post that it was not a loan to Jared Kushner or the family company directly, and that he didn’t talk at the time to Kushner. A Kushner spokeswoman, asked via email for comment, said in a statement that “Jared never spoke to Axos Bank, Bank of the Internet, or the SEC about any of this. He had no knowledge of this matter until this email.” Fortress did not respond to a request for comment.
One of Axos Bank's branches is in San Diego. The bank, formerly known as Bank of Internet USA, was one of the first digital banks. (Sandy Huffaker for The Washington Post)
Axos practices also drew scrutiny in a 2021 hearing where Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the bank had evaded a state rate cap by partnering with a firm that charged a family business 92 percent interest. Garrabrants said in The Post interview that the bank is no longer involved in such loans.
As the bank grew, Garrabrants became one of the best-compensated executives in the industry. Garrabrants’s 2018 compensation package had the potential to reach as much as $34.4 million, due in part to performance awards, the Los Angeles Times reported. When the pandemic hit in 2020, digital-only Axos was well-positioned to pick up customers, and its customer base grew exponentially.
Garrabrants, meanwhile, consistently contributed to Republican candidates, though he was not initially a Trump donor. After backing Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz, respectively, in the 2012 and 2016 presidential cycles, he backed Trump in 2020 as well as making contributions to the Republican Party and other GOP candidates, totaling about $66,000 between 2012 and 2022, according to filings.
“I’m a Republican,” Garrabrants said. “I’m not particularly politically active. But you can look at my political leanings from my donations.”
While the bank continued to be little known to the general public, it was gaining notice as a place where big borrowers who faced pushback from mainstream banks could find a willing lender — albeit sometimes at a higher interest rate and stiffer terms. Garrabrants said the image was unfair, stressing that the bank had specialized in large single-family loans to individuals with complex finances.
If any borrower had complex finances, it was Trump.
A willing lender
As Garrabrants pondered whether to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the former president, he decided to personally investigate the risks.
In early 2022, Garrabrants met Eric Trump for the first time, and the pair went for a tour of Trump Tower. The bank CEO said his due diligence led him from upper-floor offices to the bowels of the building, where he even poked around the mechanical room.
He was impressed. “I walked the building and went through each individual plan, went through some of the underlying data. I walked the neighborhood, looked at other projects in that area, went through the lease,” Garrabrants said, noting the mechanical room was “clean as a whistle.”
Police officers stand outside Trump Tower in New York in March. (Jeenah Moon for The Washington Post)
Garrabrants personally signed off on the $100 million loan, he said. James, in her suit against Trump said the Trump Organization in February 2022 pushed the bank to “leave it to the lender” to determine his worth, rather than submitting the same kind of “statement of financial condition” he had provided for prior loans.
Three months later, Garrabrants authorized the $125 million loan to Trump for his Doral property. Unlike Trump Tower, Garrabrants was familiar with Doral after attending financial conferences there, he said.
While banks are required to obtain a company’s financial statement before making a loan, there is no industry-wide standard document and it is up to each institution to determine how to collect the information, according to Kyle Welch, an associate professor of accounting at George Washington University.
Garrabrants told The Post his bank had verified Trump’s information by its own methodology and was at the head of the line for repayment. He also discounted the value of statements of financial condition in general, saying, “I’ve never run into a borrower who thinks their property is worth what I think it’s worth.”
Eric Trump did not respond to an interview request, instead sending a statement to The Post: “Axos is an amazing bank and it is a pleasure to work with them.”
Garrabrants said he was barred for privacy reasons from disclosing certain conditions of the two loans. But he said that in loaning to the former president, he knew it would “be subject to additional scrutiny.”
“So what we wanted to make sure we did was structure the loan in a manner that was even at a higher bar than it normally would be, because I expected that there would be folks who would be interested in it,” he said. He declined to say what higher conditions were imposed.
Axos also played a role in another key deal: the sale of the Trump International Hotel in Washington. The May 11, 2022 purchase of that money-losing property fetched $375 million, much more than analysts had expected, enabling Trump to pay off his $170 million Deutsche Bank loan and make a profit of more than $100 million.
Axos had gotten involved in the deal two months before the closing.
CGI Merchant Group, the buyer of the hotel’s lease, got some of its financing from an investment group called MSD Partners. That group’s investors include computer mogul Michael S. Dell. MSD, which has often done business with Axos, asked the bank to help provide financing for the deal. They signed an agreement on March 1, 2022, MSD said in a statement to The Post. Dell was a passive investor and was not involved in the decision to provide the financing, his spokesman said.
MSD and Axos declined to specify the amount provided by the bank, but the bank is described in property records as having a “senior participation interest” in the loan, meaning it would be repaid ahead of others.
CGI Merchant Group, which partnered with Hilton to relaunch the hotel, did not respond to a request for comment. MSD Partners declined to comment beyond confirming the timing of its participation.
Garrabrants, asked whether the hotel deal could have happened without Axos’s support, responded that he believed it would have occurred regardless because he had to compete with other institutions before closing the deal.
Timely loans bolster net worth
Trump says that his finances have improved from the perilous days after Jan. 6, 2021, according to his latest personal financial disclosure report with the Office of Government Ethics.
Trump claimed in his July report that he has earned more than $1 billion in the past two years, with millions from speaking fees and significant revenue from new business partners — including new ventures tied to Saudi investors. Trump claimed he has paid off three of his four loans from Deutsche Bank, the disclosure said. He also reported earning $159 million from the Doral golf resort, indicating it has recovered from the pandemic lull.
While Trump provided more information than required in the disclosure, his family company is privately held, making it difficult to fully assess his claims of vast wealth.
Axos, meanwhile, has performed better than many other financial institutions. As of June 30, the stock of parent company Axos Financial has grown 2,128 percent since Garrabrant’s appointment in October 2007, compared to the Nasdaq Composite, which has increased 380 percent during that time, the bank said. Nonetheless, its long-term rating was downgraded by Moody’s Investors Service in March, in part due to the bank’s real estate exposure. The stock has dropped from around $61 a share in January 2022 to $47 as of Wednesday, following a broader decline in banks. The Moody’s report did not mention the Trump loans and the company declined to comment on its rating. Garrabrants said that action was part of a broad downgrade of the banking sector and stressed Axos is still “investment-grade rated,” which he said shows the bank is financially solid.
It has been growing steadily in recent years and now is the nation’s 101st-largest bank as other banks have suffered failures — including Signature Bank, which was closed by regulators in March.
Trump’s Axos loans are being repaid on schedule, Garrabrants said.
The civil fraud case instituted by James is scheduled for trial in October, with the state seeking to fine him $250 million and stop him from doing business in New York. Among the state’s allegations is that Trump’s falsifying of statements of financial condition saved him $150 million over a 10-year period in lowered interest costs.
The case could force Trump to reveal more about his finances and how he has obtained his loans. James has included the sale of his D.C. hotel in her complaint, alleging that it was the result of a Deutsche loan “he was able to obtain by using his false and misleading statements.” Trump was deposed by James’s office in April, but the contents so far have not been made public.
Separately, Alvin Bragg (D), the district attorney in New York City, is continuing to investigate a similar financial fraud case but has not decided on whether to file charges.
The James case could also draw more scrutiny, even indirectly, to Trump’s business with Axos. Ely, the banking analyst, said it is inevitable that the Axos loans will be viewed in a political lens, with questions asked about whether a borrower or lender has leverage over the other. In past instances, Trump’s lenders have been drawn into an array of investigations, most recently with Deutsche probed by congressional Democrats.
“Trump is like flypaper,” Ely said. “He draws regulatory attention, and there is reputational risk in that for a bank.”
Offit, the former Deutsche banker who once approved loans for Trump, said the negative publicity would have dissuaded him from getting into business with the former president.
“It’s just not worth it,” said Offit. “At some point, you can’t make enough money.”
But Garrabrants said his job is “not to be politicizing banking … would it really be the case you’d want a society where somebody who was prominent would be denied financial services from any institution? … I think the answer is, ‘No.’”
Asked his views about Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021 — which the former president indicated earlier this month had made him the target of a federal grand jury probe — Garrabrants declined to respond directly, saying, “if I ever decide to run for political office, which I have no intention to do so, but if I do that, I’ll make sure that I am prepared to answer a wide variety of questions about different political events that occur.”
Nor did Garrabrants express concern about Trump’s history of corporate bankruptcies, his lawsuit against Deutsche, or his statement that “what the hell did I care” if banks were repaid.
“All I can say is that, if people don’t pay, I take their stuff,” Garrabrants said. “And I make sure their stuff is worth way, way more than enough to pay me.”
Image: Germán & CoCooperate with objective and ethical thinking…
Source. Le Monde/Editing by Germán & Co Roman Abramovich the 'invisible man,' a business and survival specialist
One million roubles for a photograph of him... A blurry photo eventually emerged, making Abramovich famous...
Le Monde By Lucas Minisini (London, New York, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Benoît Vitkine (Moscow, correspondent) and Aureliano Tonet (London, Rome, Tel Aviv, special correspondent), Published yesterday of 26 of July, 2023.Investigation'Roman Abramovich, the most secretive of oligarchs' (3/6). The oligarch managed to survive in the turmoil of the Russian business world and capitalize on all his experiences, including political ones, to bolster his invulnerability.
Roman Abramovich had never revealed his face. He had never let anyone photograph him. In the late 1990s, when his name flooded the Russian media, the young oligarch remained invisible. The press had to commission rough illustrations of the businessman, who ran the oil giant Sibneft, employing tens of thousands of people across the country. "During a lecture the politician Boris Nemtsov delivered at Oxford University in 1998, he was even asked if Abramovich really existed," said Nigel Gould-Davis, a former British diplomat in Russia (2003-2007) and ambassador to Belarus (2007-2009).
Also in 1998, the NTV channel launched a competition for its viewers to debunk conspiracy theories, offering a prize of 1 million roubles (around $2,000) for the very first photo of the enigmatic 30-something. Less than two months later, NTV received a photo, but the man in the picture had a mustache: It wasn't Abramovich. The prize would ultimately be won thanks to a blurry photo, where the tycoon's face, calm eyes, his composed demeanor were barely even discernible. It was enough to make headlines in every paper. He had become a public figure.
Behind the scenes, the businessman had the best allies, and secured a prominent place among the national elite. In 1996, President Boris Yeltsin was re-elected for a second four-year term. Together with Boris Berezovsky, Abramovich had financed part of his campaign, with Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in charge of gathering the funds. Abramovich began spending entire days in the Kremlin's corridors with Tatyana Dyachenko, the president's daughter. The 36-year-old former Soviet aerospace worker acted as an informal adviser to her father, a role inspired by Claude Chirac's position alongside her father Jacques Chirac, the French president who came to Moscow on an official visit at that time.
'Roman, think of the family'
As Yeltsin's health declined after multiple heart attacks, his youngest daughter asserted herself in the various power struggles. The "tsarina" and"little princess of the Kremlin," as she was nicknamed by the press, consolidated the support of loyal followers, including Alexander Voloshin, the deputy head of the presidential administration, and Valentin Yumashev, Yeltsin's new spokesman, who Dyachenko married in 2001. Yumashev, a journalist and author of the president's memoirs, became friends with Abramovich as soon as they met in 1994, at the home of Boris Gryzlov, Vladimir Putin's future interior minister. "Together with the restaurateur Arkady Novikov, they sometimes cooked shashlik, meat brochettes," said Yuri Feklistov, a photographer who was close to Yumachev. "Valentin introduced him to me as his 'friend Roman, one of the richest in Russia,' in 1997."
In the newspapers owned by banker Vladimir Gusinsky, which were highly critical of the Kremlin, this circle was referred to as "the family." The nickname was a criticism of the petty arrangements of the president and his entourage, suspected of financial embezzlement, while the young democracy was going through a serious economic crisis. Leading figures, including Dyachenko, were accused of taking bribes in return for public contracts.
According to several witnesses from the time, their funds were managed by Abramovich, who excelled as Yeltsin's cash handler. "When he was upset with the president, Alexander Korzhakov, his head of security, would repeat that the family's money had to be taken 'from Abramovich,'" said the photographer Feklistov. In July 1998, a billboard appeared for a few hours on Kutuzov Avenue, in the heart of the Russian capital, before it was taken down. It displayed a photomontage of the oligarch wearing a black suit with his hands crossed and surrounded by coins. In the center of the image, three lines of text stated, seemingly as a provocation: "Roman thinks of the family. The family thinks of Roman."
Just how far did the Yeltsin clan protect the oil tycoon? The highly advantageous terms on which Abramovich's oil company Sibneft was acquired aroused suspicion. How was the oligarch able to win the bidding for this lucrative business with an offer ($100.3 million) almost identical to the starting price ($100 million)? A parliamentary inquiry was opened in 1997. Prosecutor Yuri Skuratov suspected there was a vast corruption operation. A confidential legal document, dating from the 1990s and published by the BBC in March 2022, suggested that the Russian state lost $2.7 billion in the deal, to Abramovich and his two associates, Berezovsky and Badri Patarkatsishvili. According to the BBC, the document says ''The Dept. of Economic Crimes investigators came to the conclusion that if Abramovich could be brought to trial he would have faced accusations of fraud... by an organized criminal group." But the legal proceedings were never launched. They were said to be stopped by none other than Yeltsin. To this day, Abramovich and his lawyers deny the accusations of financial crimes.
Also in Prosecutor Skuratov's sights were banker Alexander Mamut, a close associate of Abramovich; the head of the president's Property Management Department, Pavel Borodin; and his deputy at the time, Vladimir Putin. Did they also take or pay bribes? After a few months, in the spring of 1999, a video recording of Prosecutor Skuratov with two prostitutes was broadcast on the main public TV channel. This kompromat, a Russian word meaning "compromising materials," was authenticated by the highest echelon of the state during a spirited press conference, attended by Putin, who had become head of the Russian Federation's intelligence service, the FSB. The prosecutor was suspended and then lost his job the following year. "This whole thing was obviously political," he explained to the BBC in early 2022. "In my investigations I came very close to the family of Boris Yeltsin."
Parliamentary immunity
Abramovich's activities were also being scrutinized by the courts abroad, as the 1990s drew to a close. In Switzerland, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development began legal proceedings for forgery and fraudulent practices due to the non-repayment of a loan exceeding $17 million to Runicom, one of the entrepreneur's early oil ventures. At the same time, a Bank of New York employee was accused of laundering $7.5 billion from Russia. The oligarch was one of many people mentioned in the case. "Roman was very afraid of the law," said Feklistov, who at the time was the only photographer permitted to follow the "invisible man" on his travels.
To avoid prosecution, what could be better than parliamentary immunity? In 1999, Abramovich obtained this safeguard by getting elected as a representative of Chukotka, in the far east of the country. At the same time, his associate Berezovsky became the representative for a constituency in Karachay-Cherkessia, in the North Caucasus. According to several people Le Monde interviewed, this political ambition provided a cover, to be protected from the law. This view was always dismissed by Abramovich: "It was actually Chukotka that chose me," he told Ekaterina Kuznetsova, a researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in 2002, in the journal Politique Internationale. "I ran in this region's parliamentary elections at the request of the former governor, Alexander Nazarov."
The following year, the oil tycoon coveted the governorship of this "godforsaken country." With just 50,000 inhabitants and a surface area larger than France, the territory, frozen for more than eight months of the year and separated from Alaska by the Bering Strait, embodied all the problems of the former Soviet bloc: poverty, lack of modern infrastructure, alcoholism and corruption. Accompanied by a young, international team from his business empire, including his close friend Evgeny Shvidler, Abramovich led a daring campaign, chartering planes full of food from Moscow to supply local supermarkets. Led by Sergei Kapkov, Russia's future culture minister, the campaign communications were tightly controlled: The candidate prohibited journalists who accompanied him from recording interviews or even jotting down notes.
Benedict Allen, an English explorer who met Abramovich during an expedition among the Indigenous populations of Russia's Far East in late 2000, believed that, despite his rigid methods, he embodied a "new hope" on the ground, symbolic of a "new Russia." "He wanted me to tell him what people really thought of him," said Allen. "People thought he was incorruptible, because he already had so much money." Abramovich won the election with 92% of the vote. He brought in a famous Moscow rock band, Mashina Vremeni, for the handover ceremony and set up a sophisticated but alcohol-free buffet – he doesn't drink.
Across the strait
As soon as he took office, the young decision-maker restored the telephone network and renovated the Soviet-era buildings, repainting their facades in bright colors. He made sure that salaries were paid on time, by bank transfer, to limit the purchase of alcohol in cash. "With his own money, he paid for thousands of children under 14 to go on holidays by the Black Sea," said Allen, who returned to Moscow in a jet loaned by the businessman. "He seemed to have great ambitions for the region." Interviewed by Le Monde, Yumashev, Yeltsin's former spokesman, said that Abramovich made sacrifices himself for this mandate, drawing on his personal funds. "He transformed the territory," said the former journalist. "But it didn't help his business at all, and he dreamed of becoming free again."
Anadyr, the capital of Chukotka, is nicknamed the "city of flying dogs," in reference to its strong winds. Abramovich, who had a house built in the region, returned every six months, no more. Indeed, when asked what his favorite place in the Russian Far East was, he usually answered "the chic suburbs of Moscow," with a smile. The rest of the time, around 80 Sibneft employees managed the day-to-day business. In 2002, in Time, Abramovich confessed that his employees "followed the leader" without question, even though he never revealed his full political strategy to them.
Each trip – almost 10 hours by plane from Moscow – was also an opportunity for him to cross the Bering Strait to Anchorage, Alaska, in the United States. He would fly there by private plane and often stayed in the Captain Cook Hotel presidential suite, on the waterfront. According to Jeff Berliner, a former economic advisor to Tony Knowles, Alaska's Democratic governor (1994-2002), he regained a "sense of normalcy" on American soil, which was unattainable in Russia because of his new-found notoriety.
Abramovich, with his jeans and three-day beard which made him look like a "university lecturer's assistant," was discreet and strolled around without a bodyguard and "had dinner at McDonald's." His goal was symbolic, but also geopolitical: He wanted to bring closer together the Russian and American regions, separated by the Ice Curtain (in reference to the Iron Curtain) during the Cold War.
In both Chukotka and Alaska, Abramovich supplied weapons and ammunition to Indigenous peoples to organize whale hunts. While he had one meeting after another with Alaska's political and business elite, he preferred the oil fields to the top dogs of finance. "We took him to an investment fund that works 21 hours a day, to make use of every time zone," said Berliner. "He turned to me, and said in slightly broken English, 'This is boring! Can we leave?'" Even so, his stays seemed a little too regular for the taste of both American intelligence and the federal law enforcement. Berliner was warned: "'Watch out with Abramovich!' the CIA and FBI people used to tell me, 'He's an influent oligarch.'"
Gifts to Putin
His role as governor strengthened his ties with a key partner, whom he had met thanks to Berezovsky: Putin. Following his role in shaping Sergei Stepashin's government (May 1999-August 1999), Abramovich actively supported the former FSB director's appointment as prime minister on August 9, 1999. "Roman was one of the people I consulted," said Yumashev, who would be an adviser to Putin until 2022. Yumashev also recalled a meeting in the oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky's office, with "around 20 businessmen," including Abramovich. In tune with "the family" made up of Yumashev, Voloshin and Dyachenko, he supported Putin's candidacy in the 2000 presidential election. Putin pledged that the Yeltsin clan would never be prosecuted.
The relationship between the two men first took the form of a yacht, the Olympia, which Abramovich gave to the Russian president at the start of his first term. Measuring 57 meters, with 12 cabins and several decks, it was constructed in the Netherlands for $35 million. Long the subject of wild rumors, this gift was described in detail in an English court in 2010 by whistleblower Dmitry Skarga, a former shipping company executive.
There may have been other gifts along these lines. Also in the early 2000s, Abramovich was said to have suggested to Berezovsky to offer Putin a new boat, for the sum of $10 million per person or thereabouts. Berezovsky reportedly refused outright. As a result of this largesse, by his own admission, the generous Abramovich was regularly invited by the president to the Kremlin, where they discussed Chukotka among other things.
Abramovich openly supported the president's forceful methods, including the constitutional reform passed during the initial months of his term (2000-2004), enabling him to remove regional representatives who did not please him. "Do you really believe that it is possible to reform a state in a totally democratic way? I don't think so!" the oligarch said, clearly unconvinced by the rule of law, in the 2002 interview with the researcher Kuznetsova. At the end of 2004, Putin also approved the law abolishing direct elections to the post of governor. This autocratic shift was not met with the slightest resistance from Abramovich the governor.
Meetings at the Kremlin
Above all, this conciliatory attitude helped the oil tycoon to expand his business empire. In 2002, he wanted to consolidate Sibneft by absorbing Slavneft, another oil company put up for auction by the state. A more substantial Chinese offer displeased the Russian authorities, who began aggressive negotiations. On arrival at Moscow airport, a member of the Chinese delegation was kidnapped. He mysteriously reappeared unscathed as soon as China withdrew its offer, enabling Slavneft to join Abramovich's fold.
Just after that, the oligarch bought 70% of Russian aluminum through a substantial investment in Rusal, alongside businessman Oleg Deripaska, the big winner of the "aluminum wars" – an expression referring to the period lasting several months at the end of the 1990s, when mafias linked to prominent businessmen killed over a hundred people in order to control the production of this metal. Abramovich wasn't overly worried. In the same interview with researcher Kuznetsova, he talked about how Putin's government was "really economically competent, and knows exactly what it has to do." According to him, "The previous team was much weaker and lacked professionalism. What's good for business is good for the state." Then ranked as the second richest individual in Russia and the 49th wealthiest globally, at just 36 years of age, Abramovich often had the chance to talk it over with the main man: He met with Putin every week, in the Kremlin.
Their good relations became all the more visible when the president decided to create a vacuum around him, by targeting several oligarchs from the Yeltsin era. Summoned by the courts on charges of tax fraud, Berezovsky was forced into exile in the UK, where he was granted political asylum in 2003. Through the ORT television channel, which he owned for many years, he had openly criticized Putin's leadership since the Kursk nuclear submarine accident (118 deaths). Berezovsky would never be forgiven for this affront. In London, Abramovich's former ally, who was once dubbed the "Godfather of the Kremlin," would never again travel without his bodyguards.
Khodorkovsky, the other oil oligarch and Russia's richest mogul, admired by the international elite, was not allowed to question the Kremlin's policies either. In August 2003, he signed a deal to merge Yukos – his oil company – with Sibneft, owned by Abramovich, who pocketed around $3 billion in the process. Two months later, the plan was abandoned. Khodorkovsky was arrested at a Siberian airport. Following several controversial trials, he was sentenced to a total of 13 years in prison for tax fraud and money laundering.
Invisibility cloak
In Russia and abroad, these lawsuits against the renowned entrepreneur were regarded as a politically motivated decision bearing Putin's signature. In the hope of securing his release, some Yukos shareholders sought the support of Abramovich, their short-lived partner. They asked Natalia Gevorkyan, author of the book Putin's Prisoner (co-written with Khodorkovsky), to offer him "any deal" if he would help the Yukos boss get out of prison, said the former journalist from the newspaper Kommersant.
During a meeting in London, she said, Abramovich told her that he couldn't help: "If you think Putin is the same person he was when he was elected in 2000, you're wrong. I can't walk into his office, rip off my T-shirt and ask him to release Khodorkovsky..."
Behind this act of allegiance, it was hard not to see the most ancient of ploys: the art of saving one's skin. Abramovich mastered this metis, as the ancient Greeks called the intelligence of survival.
The explorer Allen, who witnessed his adventures in Chukotka, strongly agreed: "To survive in a hostile environment, whether it's the Arctic, the primeval forest or Russian politics, you need a certain kind of mentality. Roman, from what I've observed, is an authentic survivor." Orphaned at the age of three, the oligarch very quickly understood that to survive, there's nothing like disappearing, as if draped in an invisibility cloak. He has applied that lesson from the circles of power to the Arctic Circle.
Seaboard: pioneers in power generation in the country…
…“More than 32 years ago, back in January 1990, Seaboard began operations as the first independent power producer (IPP) in the Dominican Republic. They became pioneers in the electricity market by way of the commercial operations of Estrella del Norte, a 40MW floating power generation plant and the first of three built for Seaboard by Wärtsilä.
Image by Germán & CoUS power regulator to weigh plans to speed up green energy connection
Reuters by Valerie Volcovici and Nichola Groom, July 27, 2023WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Thursday will vote on proposals to speed up the connection of new energy projects to the electric grid, which could ease a growing backlog of requests from renewable energy developers and deliver more green energy to consumers.
Long waits for transmission interconnection have slowed efforts to ease wild pricing and tight power supply in some markets, and hobbled the deployment of big solar and wind projects that the Biden administration wants built to combat climate change.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will bring up its proposed improvements for the grid interconnection process at its monthly meeting later on Thursday, according to its agenda. The planned vote comes nearly one year after landmark legislation aimed at boosting renewable energy projects called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) became law.
FERC Chairman Willie Phillips said in May that the commission could address the problem in part by shifting the approval process from a “first come, first serve” approach to a “first ready” approach – meaning projects that are ready with land rights and permits could move ahead instead of waiting behind developers that are less prepared.
New renewable generators and battery storage resources currently must go through a complex process before they can be connected. That process, which includes multiple studies of how their projects will affect the grid, can be costly and time consuming.
An April analysis by the government-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that the average interconnection process takes five years, more than double the time than in 2008. Meanwhile, last year's passage of the IRA, which offers tax credits for renewable energy, has spurred major investment in new projects.
The interconnection proposal is part of a broader package of reforms FERC is working on in coming months to help hasten the deployment of renewable energy and storage. It is also seeking to finalize proposals this year to improve planning and cost allocation for transmission lines.