Freedom shares fell 8% after Hindenburg Research published an investigation
Timur Turlov’s Freedom Holdings shares were down more than 8% in Nasdaq premarket trading after US research firm Hindenburg Research devoted its new investigation to it. Hindenburg Research accuses Freedom Holdings of “brazen sanctions evasion”, as well as falsifying revenues, risking customer funds and manipulating the market.
Shares of investment company Freedom Holdings fell more than 8% in premarket Nasdaq after the American research company Hindenburg Research dedicated its new investigation to it.
At 16:10 Moscow time, shares of Freedom Holdings are trading at $70.4, they fell by 7.01% compared to yesterday’s close.
In an investigation published on Tuesday, Hindenburg Research accuses Freedom Holdings of “brazen sanctions evasion” as well as revenue falsification, risky exposure to customer funds and market manipulation.
In particular, the investigation says that after the start of the “military special operation” in Ukraine, Freedom immediately sold the Russian business to its employee for $140 million in order not to fall under restrictive measures. However, according to the investigator, citing the former manager of the company, control over the assets still belongs to the founder of Freedom, Timur Turlov.
“This move did not deceive the Ukrainian authorities,” the investigator notes, Ukraine froze the assets of Freedom Holdings, and Turlov himself is under the sanctions of Kyiv.
Despite the “seeming loss” of both key markets, the company posted fast, uninterrupted revenue growth. This happened, according to her statement, thanks to business in Kazakhstan, a country with a population of about 19 million people and a GDP of $10,373 per capita, the investigator points out.
Hindenburg Research notes that in early August, Freedom itself openly admitted to its annual report that it “provides brokerage services to certain individuals and companies that are under sanctions from the US Treasury, the EU and the United Kingdom.”
According to Hindenburg Research, the company helped withdraw funds from sanctioned banks in Kazakhstan and Russia, including Alfa-Bank, VTB and Tinkoff Bank.
In addition to evading sanctions, “Freedom appears to be involved in a range of corporate abuses” involving a Belize-based company owned by its management, the investigation notes. Hindenburg Research said it had been investigating for over a year, including interviewing former employees of the company and market analysts.
Freedom Holdings called the Hindenburg Research investigation speculation and “a set of unconfirmed facts,” according to a response from the Freedom Finance Global press service to a Forbes request.
Freedom Holdings this February announced that it had closed a deal to sell Russian assets. Freedom made the decision to sell the Russian part of the business in 2022. In mid-February, the Central Bank approved the deal. Turlov, quoted in the press release, said that Freedom Holding thought it “would be better for him to give up” Russian businesses, since the businessman himself had renounced Russian citizenship.
Timur Turlov was included in the Forbes list of Russian billionaires in 2022 with an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion. Last summer, it became known that he refused a Russian passport – now he is a citizen of Kazakhstan.