Timur Turlov, CEO and majority shareholder of Freedom Holding Corp. (FRHC), has commented on the situation with investigations into the holding’s activities by the U.S. Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reported by CNBC. As he wrote on Instagram, the only goal of ill-wishers is to put together negative information, while their main weapon is «scandal narrative and blatant manipulation of facts.»
On Friday, October 6, CNBC reported that the SEC’s Boston regional office has been probing FRHC for months, citing «documents the outlet has seen and people familiar with the matter.»
As Turlov explained, the key reason for such investigations is complaints.
«Once you applied your denunciation and obtained standard confirmation from authorities that that information would be investigated, you can approach some respectable media outlet showing them documents about a ‘high-profile investigation.’ By doing this, ill-wishers try to pretend that such an investigation isn’t a result of groundless claims but something serious. Recently, a well-known journalist, who was preparing an article about the report almost obtained an interview from a fake account on Twitter pretending to be mine. The account was marked with a blue checkmark but don’t be fooled, anyone can buy this checkmark these days! Owners of this fake account decided to approach that journalist on their own exactly at the moment when he was working on that article. How did they know?! Fortunately, this came to light at the last moment!» he said.
The СЕО of Freedom Holding Corp. also highlighted that regulators in countries with a democratic culture do not make decisions based on denunciations. They enquire about necessary information and examine facts. «This is a strength of Western legal systems. When they launch an investigation, it doesn’t necessarily mean that some kind of punishment is inevitable. That is why your lawyers always have an opportunity to defend your business. We’ve been doing so for many years and have never dealt with serious accusations. So far, there are no official accusations from Western regulators. Our company has been listed on NASDAQ for four years, while in the U.S. we’ve been publicly operating for more than six years,» Turlov noted.
He also pointed out that professionals do not pay attention to information attacks in the media. That is why the holding’s stock value didn’t crash this week as well.
On Friday, during a trading session on NASDAQ, FRHC shares didn’t fall. Quite the opposite, they grew by 1.52% to $86.40.
According to Turlov, the best way to catch the attention of a big entrepreneur is to provoke him to negotiate.
«What is the bottom line of this story? You have to be absolutely transparent in your business and communications. I mean, to be public for real. You have to do your job and respond to any question even if you think that the question doesn’t make sense. You have to collaborate with professional partners and be able to build a professional team. Whatever you do, do it with loving care. Your openness and truth is the shield that will protect you from any kind of rumors and speculations. Do not lower yourself to the ill-wishers’ level. Time puts everything in its place. And, of course, always withstand corporate blackmail,» he underlined.
This is not the first information attack on FRHC. For example, it’s been two months since Hindenburg Research published its report on FRHC. In this report, speculators accused the holding company of breaching international sanctions, falsifying revenue, making high-risk transactions with clients’ money and manipulating the market. As a result, the short sellers lost tens of millions of dollars, even though their goal was to crash the company’s stock value. On October 5, Turlov gave an interview to Kursiv.media where he talked about the consequences of a massive interest in FRHC.
