Swiss criminal complaint reportedly filed against Prime Energy Cleantech

Prime Energy Cleantech has been issuing “green” bonds to private investors to finance its investments in photovoltaic installations in Europe. Keystone-SDA

A criminal complaint has been filed in Switzerland against the Basel-based company Prime Energy Cleantech, according to reports. The firm, which features Swiss explorer and solar energy campaigner Bertrand Piccard as its ambassador, recently announced its impending bankruptcy to investors.

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The investors include hundreds of people in French-speaking part of Switzerland who have subscribed to bonds issued by the company, which specialises in solar panels.

A complaint has reportedly been filed for several million Swiss francs invested in Prime Energy Cleantech that may never be recovered following the announcement of the debacle, a source close to the case told the AWP news agency. The Basel-Country Criminal Court declined to confirm or deny this information.

On October 18, the Geneva-based company announced its bankruptcy by e-mail to its investors, as several French-speaking media reported on Thursday. The company had been issuing “green” bonds to private investors to finance its investments in photovoltaic installations in Europe.

With Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard as its ambassador, Prime Energy Cleantech had created a buzz among hundreds of investors, who now feel they have been cheated. “Most of them invested tens, even hundreds of thousands of Swiss francs. Some have even lost a good part of their pensions,” Jérôme Fontana told AWP. He and other investors have formed a support group on WhatsApp and Facebook, with the aim of coordinating the victims’ reaction.

“We’ve already collected quite a lot of data and we estimate that the bonds issued currently amount to around CHF10 million ($11.5 million). The shares are worth between CHF2 and 5 million,” he told the agency. He said he bought only one bond, at the price of CHF10,000.

More investors are coming forward via social networks from French-speaking Switzerland and France. In their comments, they express their concerns and demand explanations.

“No member of the management team, nor Prime Energy Cleantech’s main shareholder Laurin Fäh, has given us any further information,” said Fontana. In his opinion, the fact that the company has not yet organised a meeting with its shareholders and investors “raises all kinds of suspicions”.

In the e-mail sent to investors and seen by AWP, the company explains that the majority shareholder, affiliated companies and parties close to this shareholder have become key debtors, currently experiencing “financial difficulties and no longer able to meet their obligations”.

As a result, the company’s cash flow and liquidity have been “seriously affected”.

Unlawful loans

“Management was aware of these excessive loans, or else turned a blind eye to them, since they had been identified as contrary to the Swiss Code of Obligations in a PWC audit report dating from 2022,” said Fontana, who intends to seek clarification from Khalid Belgmimi, the company’s chief executive officer (CEO).

The document shows that loans to the shareholder and related companies rose from CHF37.3 million at the end of June 2021 to CHF70.5 million at the end of 2022. PCW points out that the CHF19.5 million loan granted to the shareholder despite the lack of available reserves “represents a prohibited return of capital within the meaning of Art. 680 para. 2 of the Swiss Code of Obligations”.

When contacted, Laurin Fäh refused to accept responsibility for the debacle: “The loan in question was subsequently guaranteed and therefore complies with the law. I repaid CHF3.2 million in cash and more than CHF6 million in the form of compensation,” he said. He also claimed that CHF6 million was reinvested in a Prime Energy company in Portugal, at the instigation of Mr. Belgmimi, “a long-standing friend”.

Shared mistakes

“I may not have done everything right, but I’m not the only one to have made mistakes,” he concedes. In particular, he blames Mr. Belgmimi for not having sold some of the group’s buildings last year, from which he could have drawn cash.

The problem also stems from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), which blocked the issuing of obligations, in his view. “Finma also found serious faults on the part of Mr. Belgmimi,” he said.

Questioned on the subject, Bertrand Piccard says he “retains his confidence” in the CEO. He points out that Prime Energy’s subsidiaries continue to generate profits for the company. “The assets also seem to be able to be mobilised. This should make it possible to gradually repay investors,” he said.

Piccard, who is himself a shareholder and investor, is nonetheless astonished that Fäh was able to “draw down very substantial sums for his personal use, without any reaction from the supervisory body”.

The Prime Energy Group, parent company of Prime Energy Cleantech, is present throughout Europe, with some fifteen companies dedicated to solar power plants, operating around a hundred such installations in Switzerland and on the continent. It also owns a dozen real estate companies.

Translated from French by DeepL/sb

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