Kyiv, August 17, 2015. Recently Eximagrokom company, which owns an oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region, reported attempts of the First Ukrainian International Bank (PUMB) to seize the company's assets by forging guarantee agreements and using fake guarantors. Responding to these accusations, the bank issued a press release in which senior officials of the financial institution knowingly and intentionally provided false information about Eximagrokom and groundlessly accused the company of bad faith in the fulfillment of its loan obligations. The managers of the company state that such actions of the bank are a cynical attempt to hide its intentions to illegally seize the assets of its client, the market value of which is more than $60 mln as a repayment for a UAH 36 mln loan. Bank PUMB is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch Renat Akhmetov. "This is a classic raidering scheme: an oligarch’s bank attracts a client with good assets, forces him to mortgage these assets as a guarantee for the loan, and then creates conditions when the client is unable to repay it. As a result, the bank receives property worth ten times more than the loan itself", - said head of Eximagrokom’s legal department Edward Danilov commenting on the PUMB statement. "This is a classic of the raidering genre performed by PUMB’s “ingenious" top managers". As previously reported, in 2014 Eximagrokom received loan of 36 $mln. from PUMB. The loan was secured inter alia by a mortgage of property rights on oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv. "PUMB’s latest statement is a total manipulation of facts and blatant untruth. The bank claimed, for example, that Eximagrokom is part of a "group of related companies "Agroprodukty". In legal terms, such a "group of companies" does not exist. All companies the bank listed are separate and unrelated structures. Needless to say, in this context the bank’s statement that Agroprodukty group’s “cumulative debt is 500 mln UAH” is unfounded nonsense. It is very easy to check these facts in the official National Registry of Companies”- said Eximagrokom’s director Serhiy Holub. "The same goes to PUMB’s statement that Eximagrokom allegedly built the oil extraction plant in Chuhuiv “on the loan funds received from the bank". In reality, the construction of the plant was financed by "Forum" bank. We went to PUMB only in July 2014, when the plant has already been completed, in order to obtain additional financing in the amount of $36 mln. which we needed for the actual launch of the facility ", added Holub. "PUMB’s distortion of facts reached its height in the statement according to which 'the company [Eximagrokom] was not planning to repay the debt from the beginning, as its owner recently reregistered it in Cyprus offshore". First, Eximagrokom has never faulted on its obligations to repay the loan. Up to July 2015, we promptly paid all interest envisaged by the loan agreement. Secondly, Eximagrokom was registered in Cyprus from its inception and the bank knew it at the time of issuing the loan in 2014. No one, contrary to what the bank says, was trying to run away to Cyprus from their loan obligations", continued Holub. "On the other hand, the bank systematically uses formal pretexts and artificially creates conditions that make it impossible for us to service the loan. This gives us reason to believe that the bank is not interested in Eximagrokom settling the loan but rather intends to seize the plant in Chuhuiv. We have repeatedly told the bank, that we are ready and able to fulfill all the loan obligations. However, the bank’s unconstructive responses to our proposals made it clear to us that they are not interested in the return of the loan – they want our factory. For PUMB it is a profitable business, because if they can pull off this raidering scheme, they will receive the asset worth more than $60 mln. for the loan which cost ten times less", concluded Holub. Eximagrokom leadership has appealed to the prosecutor's office demanding to press criminal charges against the bank's management and the fake guarantors – LLC "Modern Business" – for fraudulent conspiracy with the purpose of taking possession of another's property. The next hearing in the case of the Eximagrokom with the presence of "fraud guarantors" is scheduled for August 18, 2015 in Dnepropetrovsk. In December, 2014 LLC Eximagrokom completed the construction of its oil-extraction plant in Chuhuiv, Kharkiv region. The plant’s processing capacity is 1,200 tons of sunflower seeds per day. The annual production capacity is 432,000 tons. The plant is equipped with the world leading technologies and employs over 300 people. For more information please visit www.eximagrokom.com, call +38 (063) 725-22-22 or e-mail [email protected]