"They are trying to bring down Ferrexpo's share price through dirty media campaigns," Liamets

The media attacks and violent actions against Ferrexpo's Ukrainian operations bear signs of blackmail and attempted raider seizure of business. However, the presence of the world's leading investment groups among the company's shareholders will not allow these intentions to be realized and will cause reputational losses to the state.

Economic journalist Serhii Liamets writes about this in his column on Censor.net.

He notes that Ferrexpo has recently recovered its sales figures and reached profitability, and the drop in the share price is due to information attacks on the company.

"Ferrexpo's share price on the London Stock Exchange has been falling for a long time. Initially, it was due to a full-scale war and objective obstacles to the supply of products to global markets. But now, thanks to the TIS-Ruda terminal in Odesa, the company has recovered its sales figures and is even profitable. However, the share price continues to fall rapidly because some people have been deliberately driving down the company's share price for years through dirty media campaigns," says Liamets.

Assuming who can benefit the most from such attacks, the economist reminded that a few months ago the debts of the Finance and Credit bank, which belonged to the majority owner of Ferexpo, Kostiantyn Zhevaho, were bought by a private company.

"They will surely benefit from any scandal because investors in public companies are careful to avoid any risks. But I'm sure of one thing: what is happening in Ukraine against Ferrexpo and its companies is not a story about establishing the rule of law. It is not even about bringing Zhevaho to justice for real or imagined violations. This is more like a classic Ukrainian story about forceful pressure, blackmail, and an attempted raider seizure of business," emphasized Liamets.

The journalist emphasized that the attempts to take over the company are being made with the strong support of administrative resources. This is evidenced by the disproportionately high bail amounts for Ferrexpo's top managers – UAH 999 million, even though the prosecutor's office demanded a bail amount of UAH 157 billion.

Mr. Liamets emphasized that BlackRock, a powerful international company with trillions of dollars in assets, is among Ferrexpo's shareholders.

"Ukrainian homegrown raiders probably think they can squeeze out a player like BlackRock from Ferrexpo's shareholders. This is a real game with fire because an investor of this level can resolve issues directly at the level of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And believe me, our president will do everything to remove tension from these relations. And if it turns out that these games are allegedly being played on behalf of Zelenskyy, the president's response will be extremely harsh," Liamets believes.

The journalist reminded that BlackRock and JPMorgan are jointly creating a $15 billion fund to invest in Ukraine's reconstruction. Accordingly, those who are trying to destroy their large investment through administrative pressure are harming Ukraine's reputation and jeopardizing billions of dollars in investment projects.

"Shadowy players are using force and raiding to break the global standard of doing business. In my opinion, the case is hopeless and reputationally harmful. I don't know how much longer it will last. But I think that this game will end very badly for those who are playing it," concludes Sergii Liamets.