PrimeEnergy crash: “Money was not flowing one way”

Since the PrimeEnergy Cleantech (PEC) affair broke out, this company which issued green bonds now unable to remunerate its investors, one man has been presented as the person responsible for the debacle: Laurin Fäh, the majority shareholder. The company lent him 19.5 million and he could not, or did not want to, repay it. Deprived of cash, PEC is on the verge of bankruptcy. Both Khalid Belgmimi, its CEO, and Bertrand Piccard, until recently its ambassador, point the finger at him: he has stolen from the fund, they say in substance.

After having already contested this version on October 24, Laurin Fäh (who indicates not to have taken her accusers to court) provides new details. “Contrary to what Bertrand Piccard and Khalid Belgmimi say, money did not circulate in one direction. It was back and forth. I supported PEC, who also supported me. At one point, I had actually lent more money to the company than the other way around.”

Concerning the loan of 19.5 million, he calculates today that he has already repaid 3.2 million in cash, and 3.18 million in compensation (to which would be added 3.47 million in anticipated compensation). “We re-invoiced various services to the parent company and its subsidiaries.” To date, he calculates, “there remains approximately 13 million to be returned.”

In October, Khalid Belgmimi also explained that this loan had been guaranteed, but that the guarantor had, in turn, stopped paying. Here too, Laurin Fäh contests. “It repays over five years. There are still four left. He is already ahead: he paid until March. And yesterday (editor’s note: Thursday), this surety indicated to me orally that he would not withdraw his deposit.

The majority shareholder persists in thinking that the current problem is “among other things” following the action of FINMA (the Swiss market regulatory authority), at the end of 2023. “In 2015, she considered that PEC was not subject to the law on collective investments (editor’s note: undoubtedly because the financial policeman assimilated it to a company carrying out a commercial or industrial activity, which escapes this control). Then, FINMA considered that we had to follow banking rules.”

However, according to him, PEC operated in a less structured way. “Khalid Belgmimi thought he would not be subject to FINMA and worked with less rigid rules. He’s a very good salesman, but he should have surrounded himself with managers and specialists, rather than sailing alone. “Too optimistic”, he would not have felt the tide turning. “Solar had both a cyclical and structural problem. The action of Edisun Power (editor’s note: large European producer of solar power) has, for example, lost 70% in twelve months. Khalid Belgmimi should have sold buildings a year ago already.”

As for Laurin Fäh himself, ill, he could not have intervened. “At the end of 2023, I was diagnosed with tonsil cancer. I spent three months in the hospital. I was a little offside. My German manager should have replaced me, but he never found harmony with Khalid Belgmimi and left. All this prevented me from supervising the situation.”

He nevertheless remains convinced, as he was two weeks ago, that investors can recover “at least” 70% of their investment. “There is solar, the subsidiaries in Germany, Portugal, Hungary. Management and the agent can do this if they sell the assets well.”