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The rise and fall of Lavrentios Lavrentiadis

07 August 2011 / 17:08:33  GRReporter
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Lavrentios Lavrentiadis began at the age of 35 years to create a new business "niche". Initially he was managing well while he was at home, ie in the industry. However, when he stretched out to the publishers and mainly to banks he “spoiled the soup”. From the outset, his participation in the Bank Ρroton was not easy. When he bought the small bank and became Chairman of the Board of Director of the National Bank of Greece it took George Provopoulos 10 months to approve the deal, as he was investigating the origin of income of the businessman. "He shouldn’t have got involved in both things. No banker is dealing with other things. He overestimated his abilities", commented the market factors in an attempt to decode the "Lavrentiadis" phenomenon which last week monopolized the media, as Justice is examining his accounts and his actions in order to detect any illegal activities.

A "pyramid" of ten companies - including chain restaurants – owned by the businessman Lavrentios Lavrentiadis, and a mass fraud of the customers of Ρroton Βank be mentioned in the 8 pages final report of the deputy prosecutor of the Supreme Court and Chairman of the Agency against the legalization of proceeds of crime Panagiotis Nikoloudis published today by the newspaper "Vima".

The final report of the prosecutor on the misappropriation of 51 million euro from Ρroton Βank names the companies Αlapis ΑΒΕΕ, Εlfe, Αcolab, ΜΑΚ Jsc, Exelixi Jsc, Εscado Ιnvestments LΤD, Balis Ηome Car Jsc, and Ρrovet Jsc to which Ρroton Βank has granted loans and which, as the prosecutor states, are directly linked with Lavrentios Lavrentiadis.

For Αlapis he states that by 16th of December 2010 Lavrentiadis owned 21.325% of the company and is also the sole owner of Εlfe ΑΒΕΕ. About Αcolab is noted that it was founded on December 7th, 2010 and it immediately took over the development of Αlapis against a remuneration. It is also noted that interest of Αcolab in the first half of 2011 have been paid from the personal accounts of Lavrentiadis through his company Κlipartous. The company ΜΑΚ Jas bought on September 13th, 2010 the production and marketing departments of Αlapis for hospital medicines. Nevertheless Αlapis continued to sell its drugs, and 11 foreign pharmaceutical companies selling their products in Greece, have ignored the existence of ΜΑΚ Jsc. On October 5th, 2010 the company Exelixi Jsc bought the sales department for the products of Αlapis in the pharmacies but without having the required license from the National Medicines Agency! As to Εscado Ιnvestments LΤd, it was founded on November 5th, 2010, and was registered as a subsidiary of Exelixi AD, but it was not active.

About the company Balis Ηome Car Jsc it is indicated that on June 9th, 2010 it purchased three subsidiary companies and three departments of Αlapis, for which however, "arise the questions whether these are virtual actions." Also the flow of 40 million euro in Balis Ηome Car Jsc in the beginning of 2011 from offshore companies of Lavrentiadis has been investigated. As to Ρrovet Jsc, it is noted that it receives large loans from Ρroton Βank without doing any work.

Subsequently, Panagiotis Nikoloudis notes that some of these loans go to accounts in Piraeus Bank owned by two companies that are not active: Glikya gevsi ("Sweet Taste") Jsc and "Chemical Industry of Northern Greece" (ΧΒΒΕ). The money have been withdrawn by Lavrentiadis’ partner Dionisis Bitaris. According to the accounting balance sheet of the " Glikya gevsi " Jsc, at the end of 2009, the company has not been hiring staff with the purpouse of going in liquidation. The other company - ΧΒΒΕ – is a subsidiary of the above mentioned Εlfe Jsc.

In the last part of the document the deputy prosecutor stated: "Lavrentios Lavrentiadis and seven senior employees of Ρroton Βank have deceived the investment community. In particular, they have offered interest on deposits, which in some cases amounted to 9%, and on the other hand they have granted loans with interest of 3.5%. Based on the foregoing, the Bank's activity has not only failed to guarantee the deposits of its customers, but on the contrary it has created a risk of property losses".

For the latest developments with the intervention of the Agency for money laundering, Lavrentiadis’ position is very clear:

"In his business activities he has always fully complied with the law. Lavrentios Lavrentiadis strongly denies all charges, which he called groundless and slanderous, and the mentioning of his name in such acts".

The truth is that the image of the businessman faded a bit as his companies are growing worse.

In addition he has left Greece and is permanently living in London. He explains his decision with the transfer of most of his companies on "friendly forces".

"From a communicative point of view it was a mistake to leave Greece and sell his shares without actually getting away. This return reflected badly on his profile, which had already suffered from the collapse of the shares of Αlapis. In the best of times the company's capitalization was 1.3 billion euro, and today it is only 15 million euro. He succeeded for a short time to lose investor confidence ", share people close to him in the "overthrow" the master of buying.

Tags: Lavrentios Lavrentiadis farmaceutical company Αlapis Ρroton Bank Investigation
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