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The controversial Zug oil company Terraoil used a dubious call center in Istanbul to sell its shares.
“Kassensturz” has the evidence: Terraoil CEO Peter Krempin worked with the company “N World Finance” of the two Iranian-Turkish businessmen Ahmet Nazari and Seyedhati Rafaty. German-speaking Turkish stock sellers sold hundreds of thousands of Terraoil shares to German investors via their call center in Istanbul. They thought they were calling Switzerland.
The German investors transferred the money for the shares to Terraoil in Steinhausen. However, half of it went back to Istanbul to Ahmed Nazari as a commission payment. Spicy: According to a report by the Nordic Monitor research platform, Ahmed Nazari is suspected of fraud and money laundering in Turkey.
Background report from Turkey
In Switzerland, Terraoil CEO Peter Krempin remains optimistic: In July, Krempin announced to his shareholders that thanks to “new auditors” they could now “continue with the audits for 2020 and 2021”. The CEO is trying to formulate positively that the overdue annual reports for 2020 and 2021 will be available soon.
Unusual resignation of the auditor
This is not certain. Because the auditors BDO, which took over the mandate for the audit and thus for the annual reports 2020/21, resigned the mandate again this summer.
It is actually very rare for an auditor to resign
“It’s actually very rare for an auditor to resign,” says Peter V. Kunz, Professor of Business Law at the University of Bern. There are only two reasons for this: If “the company cannot or does not want to pay the auditing fee, or if the company does not provide all the information that the auditors need.”
“Yellow card for the Board of Directors”
At Terraoil Swiss AG it is unclear how many of the 80 million francs that shareholders wanted to use to support the oil production operation in Albania are still left. Because the auditors already criticized the last annual report for 2019. According to financial analyst Christian Dreyer, the auditors “showed the board of directors the yellow card. The continuation of the company is not guaranteed”. Since then, the inflow of new shareholder funds has decreased massively.
Shareholders fear a total loss
The audit report for 2020 is still missing. Basically, if an audit report is no longer produced, the balance sheet must be deposited with the bankruptcy judge. That would be a fiasco for shareholders. Many fear that Terraoil has no assets that the bankruptcy judge could sell. Then there is a risk of total loss.
Money laundering expert Peter V. Kunz:
The responsibility lies primarily with the Board of Directors. Its President Hans Peter Vogt has known for years about the questionable dealings of its CEO Peter Krempin. Christian Dreyer, financial analyst CFA, knows the Terraoil case well. He says: “The board of directors is probably not doing its job.”
Krempin doesn’t want to know anything about impending trouble. In his most recent letter to shareholders, he is pleased when the audit is complete and he can give shareholders a personal update on Terraoil’s “exciting developments”.
The news from Terraoil is actually “exciting”.