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For over a decade, Kazakhstan’s most valuable resources – its oil and gas – have been in the hands of one man. Known for little else other than his managerial skill, the unassuming Sauat Mynbayev has negotiated deals on behalf of his government with oil industry executives from across the world. Officials from oil titans like Chevron and ExxonMobile, Lukoil, the Korea National Oil Corporation, and many others have shaken his hand and signed deals worth billions.
But Mynbayev isn’t what he seems. He’s not just a government technocrat – he’s a magnate himself. And it’s not just oil and gas.
Over a decade ago, in the secretive tropical tax haven of Bermuda, Mynbayev and a group of powerful bankers created a company that would become a multi-billion-dollar empire, investing in everything from real estate to natural resources to banking to aviation, transportation, and dairy.
But Meridian’s inner workings, the full extent of its holdings, and the methods used to acquire them have remained obscured behind a dizzying array of offshore companies that stretch across some of the world’s most secretive jurisdictions.
Until now.
Its secrets are revealed in a leak of 6.8 million confidential records from Appleby, a Bermuda law firm, that were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its global network of media partners, including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Credit: Hidefumi Nogami, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan
Appleby office building in Bermuda.
Not even Appleby – the firm that handled Meridian’s paperwork in Bermuda – was aware of the full extent of their client’s empire. Dozens of leaked emails reveal confusion on the side of the law firm and repeated requests for more information about the group’s structure.
In one email, a Meridian staffer politely declines Appleby’s request for information: “For confidentiality reasons we do not believe it is necessary at present to disclose the whole group,” he wrote. “Your understanding is appreciated.”
It took months of poring through thousands of records for OCCRP reporters to unpeel the multiple layers of offshore companies that make up Meridian – and to come to understand how its stunning success was possible.
In the company’s earlier years, it was Kazakhstan’s booming oil industry that fueled Meridian’s growth. This is no surprise, considering that, for much of his career, Mynbayev was either oil minister or chief executive of the state oil company.
But it wasn’t only Mynbayev who used his power, contacts, and official position to help Meridian grow.
According to Appleby data, his fellow co-founders included top executives and shareholders of Kazkommertsbank, the country’s largest private bank. It was this bank that provided the easy credit that made Meridian an empire that now stretches from the United States to Europe, Africa, Asia, and even Australia
Ownership stakes in Meridian Capital Limited as of 2006.
The document shows that Mynbayev was the second-largest shareholder, with 18.75 percent. His other co-owners in 2006 – by this point there were six – were Askar Alshinbayev, Yevgeniy Feld, Nurzhan Subkhanberdin, Nina Zhussupova, Azat Abishev, and Ian Connor.
This was a veritable “bankers’ club” – all seven shareholders had occupied top positions in Kazkommertsbank, the fourth-largest in the former Soviet republics.
By then, three years after its creation, the company had already become massively successful and was paying millions in dividends to its shareholders. Ian Connor, Meridian’s only non-Kazakhstani co-owner, had done so well for himself that he was preparing to move to Monaco to lower his tax payments.
This is according to notes (obtained from an earlier leak) from a May 2005 meeting he held with his bank, HSBC, in the French Riviera.
In that meeting, Connor estimated the company’s total assets at $1.2 billion, and said he had received a $9 million dividend payment from the group the previous month.
He described Meridian as a venture capital firm “investing in distressed companies in commodities mining and resources.” Its investments, he said, included major Kazakhstani gold mining and oil companies, though its most recent acquisition had been a mine in South Africa.
For such a big success, one would expect the name “Meridian” to pop up everywhere. You would at least expect the company to have a web site, but it doesn’t.
An online search of Meridian Capital leads to multiple sites that use the same generic name, but none of them are related to the Bermuda company. Considering it is worth billions, the company is nearly absent from the web. It keeps its name out of the press and rarely talks to reporters, even when it is involved in massive projects.
But why would some of Kazakhstan’s wealthiest and best-connected people go to such lengths to hide their success?
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Perhaps PE has given the green light .
Outstanding
Seems our new buyer is very keen.
Outstanding
Seems the enthusiasm has not been curbed
Outstanding
One day the new buyer will reveal .
Until then snooze tide will ebb .
Outstanding
537 Companies in HP9 1NB, Wycombe End, Beaconsfield.............
Catherine Lucy Hudson moved on , the plot Thickens
A real mixed bag .whom knows IF the Market will like or dislike .
Interesting times ahead .
Outstanding
It's about time this company just went bust, after selling everything they have to sell and returning whatever pittance is left to shareholders.
These directors are parasites, living of the bones of Rurelec, they will continue for ever selling whatever they can, paying themselves handsomely until everything is gone, and only then will they close the doors.
In my 25 years or so of trading I have never known a company more milked of money with no intention of ever trying to make a go of it, sole intention has always, since the disastrous arbitration amount and the even more disastrous financial deal arranged by P Earl, that provided most of our cash to the litigation funders to just keep the directors comfortable for as long as they can - shareholders revolted against more equity raises, watching their shares become worthless was enough without further dilution of that worthlessness.
Not kept up with this share for many years, whatever happened to the Turbines, did PE steal them away for free / cheap for some dodgy Kyrgyzstan deal or the like, does IPC still live, come to that does PE? Its been a while. These directors should now have there milking days removed, long gone are the heading days of Hydro and 10p share prices.
PE & IPC are doing very nicely .
Of course shareholders here have provided well for many others thus far
Perhaps Askar can change our fortunes , anything is possible .
Outstanding
Time for a monthly Board report from these clowns to see what they actually do all week!
Disappointing Board thus far .
Maybe Askar can achieve what Gordon couldn`t .
Outstanding
Maybe there is some hope after all
Outstanding