Vantage, Petrobras, the Financial Crisis and the $85 Billion Mystery

Friday, 20 November 2015, 13:26 HKT/SGT

Nobu Su, Chairman of TMT, continues to investigate the mystery of Vantage Drilling's involvement in the Petrobras scandal.

HONG KONG, Nov 20, 2015 - (ACN Newswire) - During the Lehman Brothers' collapse in 2008, Vantage's shares were valued at USD85 billion and appear comparable to the AIG rescue package valuation.

Mr. Su is concerned that one of TMT's accounts, specifically the RBS PLC Shipping Centre account in JP Morgan Chase Bank (New York head office) was provoked into default around the end of September 2008.

Mr. Su's investment vehicle F3 Capital had pledged the majority of its Vantage Drilling shares to RBS. Now, the Petrobras scandal has raised into question why RBS sold its entire interest in RBS Taiwan, part of RBS Singapore and part of RBS Hong Kong for some USD200 million to ANZ Bank, starting from February 2009 and concluding in April 2010.

Following Fred Goodwin's resignation, it is understood that the British Government pre-appointed three directors, with John MacFarlane (Chairman of Barclays and former CEO of ANZ BANK for seven years) becoming the non-Executive Director of RBS, working under the new CEO, Stephen Hester, and Arthur Ryan. After helping RBS GBM (the investment arm of RBS) survive insolvency, John MacFarlane went on to become the Chairman and CEO of Barclays bank.

It is worth noting that British MP Pat McFadden, who was on the Banking Standards Commission and the Treasury Select Committee, wrote to Martin Wheatley, head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and Stephen Hester in a letter seen by The Times, to answer for the possible disappearance of USD 3.6 billion dollars from TMT's account purportedly held with RBS during the weekend of the US presidential election.

Shortly afterwards, Stephen Hester stepped down as CEO of RBS.

RBS provided no meaningful response to the question raised by the British MP, commenting only that it was an 'error', with no confirmation from its auditor, believed to be Deloitte, or the FCA. This error spanned the duration of the financial crisis.

After Stephen Hester allowed Nobu Su to search through his records, the question of whether RBS Investment Bank had possibly overstated the value of Lakatamia, Slagon and Kiton to the sum of USD85 billion was immediately raised. This would almost be equivalent to the scandal involving AIG when the bailed out insurance company controversially paid major international banks (including ABN AMRO USA on 23 September 2008) 100 cents on the dollar on their complex derivative deals - with the approval of Timothy Geithner, then US Secretary of the Treasury - at the expense of American taxpayers.

Recently, TMT established that its valuation of assets held with RBS on 2 January 2009 was, according to RBS, USD3.6 billion (Asia time), which most likely means that the TMT account had USD3.6 billion at the end of 2008. This suggests that RBS's 2008 financial statement might have been improperly audited.

F3 Capital is investigating why so many banks are involved in the case surrounding pledged Vantage Drilling shares and TMT. Mr. Su calls on the authorities in the UK, US and FCA to conduct a thorough investigation and bring any wrongdoing under the weight of the law.

He comments: "This is a unique case in modern history, where an Asian company that invested billions of dollars in the West was treated quite differently during the financial crisis. I would like to find the truth and justice."

Topic: Press release summary Sectors: Legal, Daily News
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