Chris Samuelson

[hippo]

8 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Yes I've seen that. Is that not on the owner who went AWOL rather than Samuelson? That his company were paid to do a job is as irrelevant as your first assertion regarding my opinions on Tom Fox. 

If Samuelson was to be set up as a director, would it not have been in his interest to ensure the deal held?

I don't like the sound of it. At best it seems Samuelson was hoodwinked by a crook. But as for being one? Still innocent. We also don't know what, if any at all, his involvement with this deal has been and what his involvement with the club would be moving forward. 

.

Samuelsons company got paid whether the deal held or not.

We don't know what his involvement is true - most likley either financing or moving money.I just don't get why he needs to join the villa board. I guess we will find out in due course

[dont_do_it_doug.]

14 minutes ago, hippo said:

His Judgement of Villa directors \ CEO ' s ?

Without making this too personal, could you please explain to me, again, what that has to do with this subject?

From what I can tell, Samuelson is neither on the board of directors and he's certainly not our CEO.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

2 minutes ago, hippo said:

.

Samuelsons company got paid whether the deal held or not.

We don't know what his involvement is true - most likley either financing or moving money.I just don't get why he needs to join the villa board. I guess we will find out in due course

So his company are still being paid by Reading FC?

[hippo]

Just now, dont_do_it_doug. said:

So his company are still being paid by Reading FC?

I don't know the timescales - but they were to be paid £40k pm for 2 years. I wouldn't imagine that gets waived because the owner does a bunk. 

[backofthenet]

31 minutes ago, hippo said:

was he not also involved in some other attempted takeovers, i heard some talk he was involved in tryin to takeover rangers an mallorca as well, the latest takeover he was linked with was that of the mighty bristol rovers!!, now if this guy ends up on our board (which is being touted, remember there is a pic of a villa shirt in our changing rooms with his name on) that is one hell of a step up to be looking at taking over a team in league 2 to a team thats just been relegated from the premier league

my concern is this, if lerner an hollis knew that the club was pretty much sold why did they bother cutting so many jobs from the club unless the potential new owners had already requested this be done

if xia has oodles of cash why would he need samuelson (who is a financier) unless samuelson is financing the deal for xia, xia then goes awol leaving samuelson to get the club on the cheap and strip its assets

samuelson is clearly here to make money, i really dont think he gives a rats ass about aston villa fc

there is alot that really troubles me about this takeover an im sort of startin to hope it dosnt happen

[Jareth]

I'll chance a theory. 

Samuelson desires money and status within the football industry.

He tries to take over Reading, Everton and Bristol Rovers on behalf of a consortium and within the deal he takes a senior role at the club.

Gets nowhere with the consortium as they just aren't a very good purchaser - so instead goes to work for Tony

What is so sinister about all of that?

[hippo]

16 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I'll chance a theory. 

Samuelson desires money and status within the football industry.

He tries to take over Reading, Everton and Bristol Rovers on behalf of a consortium and within the deal he takes a senior role at the club.

Gets nowhere with the consortium as they just aren't a very good purchaser - so instead goes to work for Tony

What is so sinister about all of that?

Nothing - but the fact remains the deal he brokered the club ended in administration and the owner did a runner.

Do you honestly have no reservations about Chris Samuelson being on the board of Aston Villa ?  

 

[Jareth]

Just now, hippo said:

Nothing - but the fact remains the deal he brokered the club ended in administration and the owner did a runner.

Do you honestly have no reservations about Chris Samuelson being on the board of Aston Villa ?  

 

Well given he passed the fit and proper persons test whilst at Reading, unless he has done something criminal in the meantime, then no, I have no reservations. 

[hippo]

19 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Well given he passed the fit and proper persons test whilst at Reading, unless he has done something criminal in the meantime, then no, I have no reservations. 

OK so long as we are clear.

For the record I do have reservations

[Jareth]

Just now, hippo said:

OK so long as we are clear.

For the record I do have reservations

At which restaurants exactly?

[hippo]

2 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Without making this too personal, could you please explain to me, again, what that has to do with this subject?

From what I can tell, Samuelson is neither on the board of directors and he's certainly not our CEO.

There's Speculation that will take a senior role at Aston Villa once the takeover is complete. But Im sure you knew that

[mwj]

24 minutes ago, hippo said:

Nothing - but the fact remains the deal he brokered the club ended in administration and the owner did a runner.

Do you honestly have no reservations about Chris Samuelson being on the board of Aston Villa ?  

 

TBH its really difficult to tell from the Reading deal alone. If he is just a facilitator then its really up to Madjeski to do his own due diligence. 

That he or his company makes money from all the mentioned deals is neither here nor there. Everyone in modern football is out to make money somehow

Time will tell.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

2 hours ago, hippo said:

I don't know the timescales - but they were to be paid £40k pm for 2 years. I wouldn't imagine that gets waived because the owner does a bunk. 

Ok. Thanks. 

[KHV]

2 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Yes I've seen that. Is that not on the owner who went AWOL rather than Samuelson? That his company were paid to do a job is as irrelevant as your first assertion regarding my opinions on Tom Fox. 

If Samuelson was to be set up as a director, would it not have been in his interest to ensure the deal held?

I don't like the sound of it. At best it seems Samuelson was hoodwinked by a crook. But as for being one? Still innocent. We also don't know what, if any at all, his involvement with this deal has been and what his involvement with the club would be moving forward. 

He has a knack of being innocent, that also worries me as much as hime being gulity. He has been suspected of money laundering by the French, the Dutch and the FBI in high profile cases. Throw in the Reading debacle and the Everton debacle he makes me uneasy. Everton fans dislike Wyness and Samuelson and Reading fans wouldn't piss on Samuelson if he was on fire.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

3 minutes ago, hippo said:

There's Speculation that will take a senior role at Aston Villa once the takeover is complete. But Im sure you knew that

So my judgement regarding Tom Fox, which is a lot more complex than "good guy/bad guy", is relevant how? 

I certainly don't recall ever having to defend him against accusations of illegality. Not that I am defending Samuelson, I know next to nothing about the guy aside from the article posted. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

8 minutes ago, KHV said:

He has a knack of being innocent, that also worries me as much as hime being gulity. He has been suspected of money laundering by the French, the Dutch and the FBI in high profile cases. Throw in the Reading debacle and the Everton debacle he makes me uneasy. Everton fans dislike Wyness and Samuelson and Reading fans wouldn't piss on Samuelson if he was on fire.

Thank you. This is the information I was looking for. 

The money laundering accusations, were they all based upon the Reading case?

[hippo]

2 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

So my judgement regarding Tom Fox, which is a lot more complex than "good guy/bad guy", is relevant how? 

I certainly don't recall ever having to defend him against accusations of illegality. Not that I am defending Samuelson, I know next to nothing about the guy aside from the article posted. 

How you can claim to know 'nothing about him' - this thread is exclusively about him , including links to his time at Reading (the basis of my concern) - on which you have given you're opinion have you not ?

I have also said in the thread - he has done nothing illegal. Personally if he joins our board I don't think its good for us ....as it wasn't for Reading 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

1 minute ago, hippo said:

How you can claim to know 'nothing about him' - this thread is exclusively about him , including links to his time at Reading (the basis of my concern) - on which you have given you're opinion have you not ?

I have also said in the thread - he has done nothing illegal. Personally if he joins our board I don't think its good for us ....as it wasn't for Reading 

I said next to nothing aside from his time at Reading which we are discussing now. A situation that, unless Xia himself is a conman, I'm failing to see as damning enough for me to form a negative opinion.

I'm not sure what your issue is here. You have a strong opinion which I'm interested in hearing more about. Some people feel uneasy about the whole deal. I'm not one of those people, but I am inquisitive and open to all possibilities. 

[KHV]

15 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

Thank you. This is the information I was looking for. 

The money laundering accusations, were they all based upon the Reading case?

No, here's just a snippet of what he pops up in. I'm fairly certain most of what he does sails fairly close to the wind of being legal (if it is legal?)

 

 

http://www.gudavadze.com/court.news.christopher-samuelson-denies-money-laundering-allegations.html

Chris Samuelson denies allegations of money-laundering By Matt Scott 20 April 2012 The man fronting the Russian takeover at Reading has been accused in US court papers of being the subject of “multiple high-profile money-laundering investigations”, The Daily Telegraph can reveal. Chris Samuelson, who has been the spokesman for Anton Zingarevich’s bid for the newly-promoted club, denies the allegations. Samuelson, an offshore financier based in Switzerland, has been named in courts on both sides of the Atlantic as a key former associate of Arkady Patarkatsishvili and his business partner Boris Berezovsky.   According to one deposition uncovered by Daily Telegraph investigations, Patarkatsishvili accused Samuelson of being “a crook” and “a thief and a liar”. Samuelson counters that the sworn statement itself is wrong. The claims come in the shape of a signed affidavit from the Russo-American lawyer Oxana Adler, who describes herself as having been Patarkatsishvili’s counsel for more than a decade. Adler’s written statement before the Miami division of the US Bankruptcy Court says: “Oxana Adler declares under the penalty of perjury as follows [the existence of] documents showing that Samuelson, for years, has been the subject of multiple high-profile money-laundering investigations in the US and Europe. “Most prominent were the probes by the French Central Office for Combating Grand Financial Offences (OCRGDF) a principal French governmental agency investigating major financial frauds, and the Economic Investigation Service (FIOD/ECD), the Netherlands money laundering watchdog.   “In the early 2000s Samuelson was also investigated by the FBI in connection with the Bank of New York money laundering scandal.” Samuelson responded to The Daily Telegraph: “I have no knowledge of being investigated as Adler claims” and described her statement as “farcical”. The French judicial police, which houses the OCRGDF, said it could neither confirm nor deny Adler’s statement about whether it has investigated Samuelson, since it never passes comment on operational matters. The FIOD/ECD has not responded to the Daily Telegraph’s emails or calls about the allegations since Thursday. He adds that Adler and her fellow New York lawyer Emanuel Zeltser are giving evidence against him due to the highly acrimonious nature of the dispute over the affairs and assets of the late billionaire Patarkatsishvili. Denying the allegations, Samuelson says “I am involved in these cases as the trustee of assets that I am trying to recover.” Three months have passed since the takeover deal was announced as having been agreed in principle with the club’s current owner, John Madejski, yet the buyout has still not been approved by the football authorities. As revealed in The Daily Telegraph on Thursday, Zingarevich’s Thames Sports Investment vehicle is now the subject of investigations by the Premier League. The Football League’s own inquiries into the new ownership have so far proved inconclusive, and the Premier League took an interest in the matter prior to the club’s promotion from the Championship. But it is clear Samuelson has long been a close associate of some of the most controversial figures in the Russian super-rich. Samuelson provided corporate services for Berezovsky between 2000 and the time of Patarkatsishvili’s death in 2008. Berezovsky admitted before the High Court to having been the subject of money-laundering investigations in Switzerland and Holland. He added: “All the investigations are closed because no one reason was finded [sic] that it was money-laundering.” He claimed there had also been an investigation in France of allegations of money-laundering at a company unconnected to Berezovsky. That company’s affairs were, according to a statement Samuelson made to the New York Times in 1999, managed by Samuelson. Offshore structures have played a major part in TSI’s attempted takeover at Reading, though, Samuelson states, Berezovsky is not involved. Samuelson explained: “Thames Sports Investments Ltd is a Gibraltar company established to invest in the sports sector and its first investment is Reading Football Club. “The beneficial shareholder is only Anton Zingarevich. The company is administered by Finsbury Trust, Gibraltar’s largest trust company. The ownership has been disclosed to RFC and to the Football League. “Anton is not a UK resident and TSI will be doing other activities in other countries. Some clients want privacy and in some cases it can be mandatory. If you travel to such countries as Brazil or Mexico, you will appreciate that kidnapping and ransom are major concerns for high net worth people.”       http://barejustice.com/news.court.man-in-the-shadows-090211.html The trial of Steven Steiner and his brother Joel Steigner, former principals of the infamous Mutual Benefits Corporation, is expected to begin in January next year.   Mutual Benefits Corporation (MBC), a former Ft. Lauderdale-based prosperous viatical settlement company, was shut down by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in May 2004. A viatical settlement is a transaction in which a terminally ill person sells the death benefit of his or her life insurance policy for a lump-sum cash payment to a third party which will collect proceeds when the insured dies.   In October 2006, Peter Lombardi, former president of Mutual Benefits, plead guilty to a variety of Federal charges and was sentenced to a 20-year prison term. Lombardi was also ordered to pay nearly a billion dollars in restitutions. In December of 2006, Clark Mitchell, a medical doctor associated with MBC, plead guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud related to his bogus determinations of the insureds' lifespan. Mitchell was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release. Mitchell was also ordered to pay approximately $355 million in restitution to MBC’s investor-victims.. Guilty pleas of other former MBC managers followed. In May 2007, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, announced the pleas of Carol Traina and Bari Wiggins, MBC mid-level managers. In September of that year, three more plead guilty: Raquel Kohler, MBC chief financial officer, Ameer Khan, who headed the related Viatical Services Inc., and Stephen Ziegler, MBC’s lawyer. Each was sentenced to five years in prison followed by 3-year supervised probation. In addition they were all ordered to pay approximately $826 million in restitutions.   The restitution orders however appear largely ceremonial. No one expects the admitted felons to pay a dime. Thousands of victims said goodbuys to their investments. Tens of millions of dollars disappeared without a trace...   Invisible players - - Documents of the recent divorce proceedings of Joel Steigner, which left his ex Diana with little more than her designer clothing and used furniture, reveal that Steigner was funneling MBC profits into offshore accounts. How much and where to remain a mystery.   "Prosecutors got only the local guys" said one observer familiar with the former MBC executives’ financial machinations, "those who have created and are still managing their secret worldwide network of dummy corporations and offshore accounts have gone un-noticed".   Filings in Miami Bankruptcy Court reference two men whose names have not surfaced in the MBC saga thus far. It is clear from the court papers however that the duo worked closely with Lombardi, the Steiner brothers and other disgraced MBC principals. These are W. Shaun Davis, resident of Hamilton, Bermuda and Christopher Samuelson of Vevey Switzerland. Davis and MBC principals go back a long way, according to Davis' sworn testimony. Since 2002 Davis interacted with every key MBC crook, including all three Steiner brothers, Carol Traina, and even Peter Lombardi himself. As noted, all these individuals were convicted of massive investors' fraud in 2006-2007, sentenced to long prison terms, and ordered to repay the victims of their crimes nearly one billion dollars. In 2003 Davis became the director of an obscure Bermuda offshore company styled 'Triangle International Asset Management', court documents show. Triangle was engaged in the business of creating shell offshore companies and managing assets for wealthy clients seeking anonymity. Steven Steiner was a 75% owner of "Bermuda Triangle, court documents show.   Samuelson, a furtive Swiss financier, is also in the business of mass-production of offshore "trusts" and dummy companies  for his wealthy and super-wealthy clients looking to disguise their real identities and secrete assets, according to court papers. Samuelson operates through his Swiss-based company dubbed 'Mutual Trust'  with satellite offices strategically located in Brunei, Gibraltar, Cyprus, Curacao and other offshore havens. These countries have long been on the U.S. agencies' radar of jurisdictions prone to money laundering. Mutual Trust's website openly peddles itself as money-launderers’ last sanctuary, stating that while "some banks have volunteered information on accounts held at overseas branches to their domestic tax authorities driven by their own fear of criminal prosecution ... we will not use financial institutions to hold assets on behalf of our clients ... [or] jurisdictions that do not respect and uphold the fundamental right of clients of confidentiality". Although Samuelson does not identify which jurisdictions "do not respect our fundamental right of confidentiality" it is clear that he is referring to the United States. Samuelson's client list includes a wide-spectrum of notorious international characters from shadowy Arab sheikhs to fugitive Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, wanted by Interpol for money laundering and participation in international organized crime. Samuelson himself, for years, has been the subject of multiple high profile money laundering investigations in the US and Europe. Most prominent were the probes by the French Central Office for Combating Grand Financial Offences (OCRGDF) a principal French governmental agency investigating major financial frauds, and the Economic Investigation Service (FIOD/ECD), the Netherlands money laundering watchdog, court filings show. In the early 2000s Samuelson was also investigated by the FBI in connection with the Bank of New York money laundering scandal. Samuelson has never been arrested, indicted or convicted... "Money laundering is extremely difficult to prove or prosecute" said one expert familiar with Samuelson’s techniques, "and Chris knows how to walk on water, he is the ultimate 'man in the shadows'", he added.  The "silent partner" - -   According to court documents, Samuelson set up and managed a network of shell companies and offshore accounts for MBC principals. Through  these dummy corporations and anonymous accounts, the illicit gains have been spirited out of country. One witness testified under oath that in 2003 Steve Steiner met with her in the New York Waldorf Astoria Hotel to tout a $15 million investment by her family. Steiner depicted Samuelson as MBC's "silent partner". According to the sworn testimony of another witness, after Steiner was indicted on Federal money laundering and numerous other charges in January 2009, Samuelson panicked. He requested of the witness to urgently turn over to Samuelson numerous MBC related documents, in an apparent effort to discard or alter evidence against Samuelson. "Chris asked me to give him documentation, all papers that I could find" the witness testified "something happened and Steve Steiner was indicted", the witness continued, "it is very important now because I don't want to follow Steve Steiner". So far Davis and Samuelson appeared to escape the grip of the Feds' long arm. Neither has been arrested or indicted, even though they apparently visit the U.S. frequently. Indeed court filings show that their lawyers actually intend to put them on the stand in the civil proceedings pending in Miami Bankruptcy court. That case involves a dispute over $15 million invested in MBC by a European group in 2004. Judge Cristol set the trial for late October - early November of this year. Complaints of favoritism - - Judge Cristol appointed James Feltman, a well-known South Florida bankruptcy trustee, to analyze conflicting claims and report his findings to the court. Feltman received $200,000 as an advance for his fees and expenses, court records show. This sum was paid by the clients of Patricia Redmond, Feltman's long-time friend and the lead lawyer for one of contending groups. Concerns are voiced that Feltman has since avoided interviewing witnesses and looking at evidence that may be unfavorable to Redmond's clients.        http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/banking-lessons-for-future-oligarchs/223225.html It was 1997 and the heyday of Russia's boom transition to capitalism. Christian Michel and Christopher Samuelson could not help but quietly gasp as they climbed the girl-lined, sweeping staircase of one of Moscow's most lavish hotels, the Metropol. In the hall below, where rich young Russians clinked glasses to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Rossiisky Kredit Bank, were many of the victors of the asset grab that marked the collapse of the Soviet Union. With their global trust business, Valmet, acting as a key link to the outside world for at least three rapidly growing empires -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky's Group Menatep, Boris Berezovsky's Logovaz and Vitaly Malkin's Rossiisky Kredit Bank -- Samuelson and Michel had helped make most of them. In those days, it looked like they had good reason to congratulate each other. They had given these upcoming business barons a crash course in the rudiments of Western banking practices. They had facilitated the transfer of cash made in lucrative export deals from an inflation-ravaged economy to safer havens in the West -- and helped point out prime oil assets along the way. They had nurtured their young proteges' transformation from driven and ambitious, young, jean-wearing, black marketeers of the Soviet late 1980s into the slick flag bearers of Russia's new order mulling in the ornate Metropol. Together, these new Russian businessmen controlled a large chunk of GDP and wielded a growing political clout. Today, the brand of capitalism Samuelson and Michel helped cultivate has been torn down. Just as he was about to cash in with the sale of part of his Yukos oil company to a Western major, the arch-capitalist they helped climb to power, Khodorkovsky, was arrested in October 2003 on charges of large-scale fraud and tax evasion. He and his partner Platon Lebedev, who was tried with him, await a court ruling this week, while most of the rest of the group have fled to Israel with warrants out for their arrest. It has been a battle for empire as well as wealth, according to Samuelson, a well-connected financier. "[President Vladimir] Putin appears to be trying to rebuild the Russian empire. That's where the danger is because it will inevitably lead to clashes with the U.S.," Samuelson said during more than seven hours of interviews in the lounge bar of the well-appointed Goring Hotel, locked in a wedge of prime London real estate between Victoria Station and Buckingham Palace. Under Putin, the Kremlin has turned the tide against these Yeltsin-era business barons toward increasing state dominance. Not content with tightening political control, he has also moved his top aides into key positions at state-owned energy companies and is bidding for the creation of a new state-controlled energy behemoth to boost the Russian government's influence over global oil supply. Instead of being snapped up by a Western group, Khodorkovsky's oil major has been partially swallowed by state-owned Rosneft. In part, this clampdown on laissez faire capitalism is also a backlash against the tactics of little known, inside players like Samuelson and Michel. They had joined hands with upcoming oligarchs like Khodorkovsky to help build schemes to minimize taxes, which drained the federal budget and weakened the Kremlin to such an extent that eventually Khodorkovsky could seek to eclipse Putin's hold on power. Their role was significant. "They taught us a great deal," Menatep shareholder Mikhail Brudno said by telephone from Tel-Aviv. "They taught us about the principles of organizing business: from both the financial and the business side. We didn't know anything. Until we met, we couldn't even imagine how these business processes were built." In Michel's eyes, his teachings helped boost the Russian economy, freeing business from an overly powerful state. It was also an initiation, of sorts. Samuelson and Michel's Valmet Group was part of an extensive network that spread from Russia to the secretive financial system of Dubai, then on to Africa, London and the United States. Wrapped up in the network was not only Khodorkovsky's Menatep, but the founders of Rossiisky Kredit and Stephen Curtis, a former Dubai-based lawyer who via Samuelson became a consultant to Berezovsky and Khodorkovsky, setting up a legal framework for their offshore transactions. Michel sold off his stake in Valmet in 2000 and was followed a year later by Samuelson. The company's reputation was in tatters following a series of scandals in the late 1990s in which it was alleged to have been part of an extensive money-laundering network involving the Bank of New York and Menatep. Samuelson and Michel deny any wrongdoing. Curtis, the man with the keys to much of this network, continued in his role. But a few months after he was appointed managing director of Menatep to replace the jailed Lebedev, he died in a helicopter crash. More than a year after the March 2004 accident, the inquest is yet to be held. The Early Days The young Khodorkovsky's linkup with Valmet back in the early days of 1989 was fortuitous. It marked the beginning of instruction in capitalist business practices, from standard banking procedures to offshore shell games and acquisitions, all an initiation that proved key in crafting the course of their business for much of the 1990s. Khodorkovsky had already moved fast to seize new opportunities. He had leapt from importing computer parts from the West to founding one of the first private banks to be granted a license for commercial banking as the Soviet Union was collapsing. He needed immediately, however, a skilled Western counterpart. After a seemingly random visit in late 1988 to their office in Paris by a Russian emigre living in France, Samuelson and Michel's contact with Menatep was made. The emigre, who spoke French with a thick Russian accent, had arrived in their office unannounced with a strange proposal that Valmet finance a tour of the Moscow circus, Michel said. "I asked him, 'Is this a joke?'" he said. He asked, were we not a finance company. "I said, 'Yes, but we don't do this type of finance.' I started to tell him what we do." A couple of months later, Michel said he got a call from Moscow. It was the emigre, whose name Michel said he did not want published. "He told me, 'There's a group of young people who have started a bank. They're looking for a foreign partner'" Valmet, which stood for Valeur et Metaux or Assets and Metals, had been transformed with the help of Samuelson into a pioneering global trust business with branches in Gibraltar and the Isle of Man from a Swiss-based family business that managed the wealth of the South American mining dynasty Michel had married into. With the help of British government connections, Valmet had already built up a wealthy clientele that included the ruling family of Dubai. Samuelson and Michel were experts in the art of creating shell companies and moving money into tax havens. But for Khodorkovsky and his team, the first lessons they gave were in basic Western banking practices and even in basic personal finance. "I taught them what a credit card was, and how to use a checkbook," Michel said. When they first came to Geneva to Valmet's offices, they stayed in Michel's apartment. "Initially their budget was so tight they could not afford even to stay in a hotel," he said. "Khodorkovsky and Nevzlin came several times. Every trip they made they traded up. First, it was my Geneva flat, then it was a low-cost hotel and eventually it was a suite at the five-star Hotel des Bergues." Then came the lessons in Western business practices, which began with banking and later expanded even to advice on future possibilities in the oil industry. "I spent two weeks training the entire staff in Budapest ... running through in basic detail how a bank works," Michel said. "I taught them how to read a balance sheet, how to conduct an audit, how to put internal control mechanisms in place, and how to provide credit facilities. It was a crash course in banking 101. "They were fast learners," he said. Soon their clients, Bank Menatep and others, were moving on to more complicated transactions and testing the Western system to the limit. "These newly formed corporations had no idea of Western business practices and who the players were. One of the very first transactions ... was something completely crazy. It was not that it wasn't legitimate. It was just that you couldn't do that," Michel said. "We told them that Arthur Andersen, who were my auditors, would not allow it, and we got a letter back from them saying 'Could you tell Mr. Arthur Andersen ...' ... They didn't have a clue." Both Michel and Samuelson declined to say what the transaction involved or which of their Russian clients it involved. They declined to elaborate on any of the transactions they were conducting for their Russian clients at a time when the Soviet Union was heading for bankruptcy as it rapidly hemorrhaged cash. While the Soviet Union teetered toward collapse and its hegemony over a vast swathe of territory from East Germany to Turkmenistan began to fracture, Bank Menatep was growing fast. The Family     Itar-Tass The country's most powerful businessmen and bankers, including Khodorkovsky, center, meeting with President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko in the Kremlin on June 2, 1998, two months ahead of the devaluation and default. By the time Boris Yeltsin took the stand during the 1991 coup that was to make him the country's leader, Khodorkovsky was building close ties with the future regime. As Yeltsin stood on a tank and rallied the crowds in front of the White House, Khodorkovsky, by then an adviser to the Russian government, was inside with Yeltsin's press secretary, who was steeling himself for a storm and standing guard with a gun, Khodorkovsky said in an interview with the U.S. television network PBS. Shortly after Yeltsin moved into the Kremlin, Khodorkovsky worked a brief stint in the Oil and Gas Ministry. Future allies such as Konstantin Kagalovsky, who became a Menatep vice president, also received posts from Yeltsin, while Menatep corporate lawyers worked for Alexander Mamut, a Kremlin financier, and for Yeltsin's son-in-law Leonid Dyachenko. The bank was growing rapidly not just because it courted ties in high places, but also because it was embarking on an image campaign of its own. Menatep advertised for shareholders on television while making sure to cultivate an image of wealth. The bank opened up a representative office in Paris on the fashionable Rue de la Paix. Tucked alongside Cartier shops, the two-room rep office made an immediate impression. "All the Russians that came through Paris went to visit their office and left favorably impressed," Michel said. "This was part of [Leonid] Nevzlin's brilliant PR strategy. He reasoned that if you outwardly appear successful then this will be rapidly backed up by genuine success." They had been joined in late 1989 by Lebedev, the only card-carrying member of the Communist Party to enter the group and former head of planning and economics at Zarubezhgeologiya. They formed a formidable team. "Lebedev was the organizational genius. He liked things to run like a well oiled machine," Michel said. Nevzlin, meanwhile, was the artist, he said, in charge of government communications. "Nevzlin was all charm and smiles. He would embrace you and bring you into the fold. The team was impressive in that they all complemented each other perfectly." They also rarely let one another out of their sight. Nevzlin, Lebedev, Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Dubov and Brudno all lived together throughout. "Over the years, they migrated like one nomadic clan through a series of compounds. One of the early ones was a group of apartment blocks, surrounded by high walls and barbed wire. The only thing lacking was a watchtower. It was extraordinary. They lived there like a commune. They worked together at the office, they were together after office hours. Their children played together, their wives spent much of their time in each other's company. None of them could receive a visitor without the others' knowledge," Michel said. "They reproduced the only lifestyle they knew befitting leaders of a powerful organization, that of Soviet government ministers." It was also a vicious climate of little trust. Worse still for the banking industry, there was no such thing as credit history. Clients were closely watched by security agents. "A typical credit committee of a Russian bank in 1989, 1990 would have to be entirely based on personal confidence in the entrepreneur. There was no balance sheet, no asset, no record to collateralize a loan," Michel said. "When the payback time came, they would send someone to collect the loan. It went a little like this: They'd say 'we're here for the money and if you don't pay we'll nail your kneecaps to the floor,' so to speak," Michel said. "All the security people at the banks were debt collectors, I suspect." It was a tough climate that continues to haunt all involved in the scramble to the top, including Valmet. Khodorkovsky's second in command, Nevzlin, now faces charges he ordered a double murder and the attempted murders of three other executives in a series of attacks in the late 1990s. Nevzlin denies the charges, which he says were motivated by the political onslaught against Menatep, but as one former senior Yukos executive puts it: It was a battle for empire. "Western countries also had colonial wars. But they do not carry any responsibility for those who got killed," said the official, Alexei Kondaurov, a former KGB general who headed Menatep's analytical department. The risks indeed got higher as Menatep began to expand its empire out of banking and into industry. Most of the nation's biggest enterprises were sold off via voucher auctions. Meant to be distributed to the population, the vouchers were soon bought up by the rich few banking groups like Menatep as ordinary people, their savings ravaged by hyperinflation, sold them off for just enough to cover the cost of staple goods. The Real Prize For Samuelson and Michel, it was also a turning point and one they watched closely over. Used to dealing with the riches of Arab leaders, they found Menatep, by comparison still relatively small fry. By 1994, however, Menatep had started moving into all kinds of industries, from chemicals to textiles to metallurgy. But for Valmet, which by that time had already partnered up with one of the oldest banks in the United States, Riggs Bank, and for Menatep, the real prize was oil. The West had long had its eyes on Russia's vast oil reserves. Exxon had hired a former high-ranking Soviet-era geologist, George Mirkin, who had left Russia for the United States before the perestroika era, in order to gain an inside view on where the biggest treasures were, according to Samuelson, who also had founded companies for Western investors to take stakes in smaller Russian oil ventures, such as via the Anglo-Siberian Oil Co. In one meeting between Exxon officials and Russian ministers, Exxon asked if they could run Siberia, Samuelson cited Mirkin as telling him. "The answer was: 'No way: We know what you did to Saudi Arabia.'" Knowing it was going to be politically impossible for the new Russian government to sell its oil riches directly into the hands of big Western oil majors, even if it could have gotten world prices for the fields, Samuelson stayed on the inside track with the up and coming Russian business barons who could win them. Samuelson said that he sat down with a couple of them with a Fortune 500 listing of the largest companies in the world, and after going through the first 30 or so, the message was delivered: The biggest fortunes had been made in oil. As the government prepared to sell off part of its oil industry in the controversial loans for shares auctions of 1995, Samuelson and Michel were already getting a bird's-eye view of the choicest assets. Via a consulting arm of Valmet, GT Valmet, they won a contract in 1995 from the World Bank to make sure that $1.6 billion it had extended in loans was being spent properly by production units such as Yuganskneftegaz and Purneftegaz. Yuganskneftegaz, which was visited by Valmet consultants, formed the backbone of the soon-to-be privatized oil company Yukos. Purneftegaz, meanwhile, was part of the same Soviet-era network of production units as Sibneft. By that time, Valmet was also acting as a consultant to Berezovsky, the Kremlin intriguer who won close ties with the Yeltsin family. Both Khodorkovsky and Berezovsky ended up big winners in the auctions of Yukos and Sibneft, gaining controlling stakes for just over $300 million and just over $100 million, respectively. As Samuelson and Michel see it, there was no other way for the Russian government, which was being urged to privatize its assets by the Western world. "The solution chosen was absolutely the right one for the country. Give the companies away! Give them to entrepreneurs who have demonstrated their ability to run a business," Michel said.

Edited May 23, 2016 by KHV

[hippo]

6 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said:

I said next to nothing aside from his time at Reading which we are discussing now. A situation that, unless Xia himself is a conman, I'm failing to see as damning enough for me to form a negative opinion.

I'm not sure what your issue is here. You have a strong opinion which I'm interested in hearing more about. Some people feel uneasy about the whole deal. I'm not one of those people, but I am inquisitive and open to all possibilities. 

My issue (which I have said 3 or 4 times now) - is that the last takeover he brokered the ownner did a bunk and the club ended up administration.

Disclaimer

I know he isn't on the villa board - I know he may not be involved at all - this is in response to speculation he may be.