Argentem Creek Partners

Argentem Creek Partners (ACP) was established in 2015 to provide rapid financial solutions in emerging markets. The company's CEO is Daniel Chapman, who has led the company since its inception. The company has offices in financial centers such as Buenos Aires, London, Minneapolis, and New York. In July 2022, Argentem Creek Partners opened its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. 

According to foreign media reports, the company has close ties with Russian businesses.

Business Activities

Argentem Creek Partners invests in projects and companies operating in fast-growing economies, providing financial support to corporations for the implementation of their business plans. Journalists say, ACP finance companies and countries facing financial difficulties and invest in projects with high-profit potential.

In particular, economist Oleksandr Okhrimenko noted that the company is using martial law in Ukraine for beneficial purposes. "It is obvious that the goal of Argentem Creek Partners is simple – to take advantage of martial law and acquire a devalued business," he wrote about one of the court cases involving the company.

The fund has been repeatedly noted for unethical actions against its counterparties worldwide. In addition to aggressive black media campaigns against opponents, ACP may involve local officials and political figures to achieve its results.

ACP is also accused of operating according to approximately the same formula:: unscheduled debt recovery demand during a crisis, aggressive media campaign against the debtor, legal proceedings, and transfer of the debtor's assets to an interested third party.

Notable Cases and Scandals

In 2020, Kazakhstan, through American lawyers, filed a lawsuit against Argentem Creek Partners and the fund's CEO Daniel Chapman in the Southern District of New York. The fund was accused of covering up fraudulent activities in Kazakhstan, providing financial and legal support to individuals accused of deliberately leading the bonds of entities under their control to default. In return, ACP was to receive up to 70% of the profit from the unpaid bonds.

In 2020, ACP, along with two other investment funds, AllianceBernstein and Moneda, demanded early repayment of $750 million in bonds from the Brazilian sugar producer GVO (formerly Grupo Vigolino de Oliveira). GVO proposed negotiations, but the company was denied restructuring and was instead suggested to undergo reorganization and bankruptcy. This led to a lengthy legal process, and in 2021, the Santa Adélia municipal court in São Paulo state rejected the creditors' claims, stating that GVO did not need to declare bankruptcy.

Since 2019, the fund has been involved in a legal process against the large Indonesian coal miner Berau Coal Energy in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The company attempted four separate additional rounds of debt restructuring in Singapore, but Argentem, in line with its typical business model, blocked these attempts and demanded that the Indonesian company declare bankruptcy.

Ukrainian Involvement

Argentem Creek Partners has been working with Ukrainian companies for more than 10 years, as the domestic high-risk market fits well with the fund's business model.

Since 2013, the creditor has aggressively acted against the Ukrainian metallurgical company Interpipe, owned by Ukrainian oligarch Victor Pinchuk. A year before the war, the company began experiencing difficulties due to the depression in the pipe-rolling market and restrictive measures from Russia. Creditors demanded early bond repayment, but due to even more aggressive tactics by the Ukrainian company, the debt was restructured and paid off by 2019.

Since 2014, ACP has tried to aggressively act against the Ukrainian metallurgical giant Metinvest, owned by Rinat Akhmetov. The metallurgical company suffered a serious blow after Russia's occupation of parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in early 2014. However, the debt was restructured, and Metinvest completed its payments in 2017.

Since the end of 2022, the investment fund has had a corporate conflict with the Ukrainian agricultural holding GNT Group. ACP accuses Ukrainian agribusiness of violating a credit agreement, while Ukrainian businessmen claim that the American fund seeks to carry out a corporate raid on the Odesa grain terminal. 

After the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian agricultural holding was given one day’s notice of the need for early repayment of the loan, followed by an aggressive media campaign and legal process.

Moreover, as stated by Argentem Creek Partners regional partner John Patton, the fund received support from the Ukrainian authorities and prosecutors in the matter of the Odesa grain terminal. What the foreign businessman meant remains unclear. The involvement of the head of the Servant of the People faction, David Arakhamia, in the corporate conflict also remains in question. He claimed to have met with Argentem representatives in Vienna in November 2022.

In April 2024, ACP was accused of attempting to raid the assets of GNT Group. For this, the media write, ACP enlisted Georgian-Moldovan oligarch with a Russian passport, Vazha Jashi, who has close ties with Russian and Georgian criminal groups, to raid the assets of GNT Group.

Connections with Sanctioned Russian Businesses

Since 2022, Argentem Creek Partners has had joint investments with ACG Mining Limited, a company specializing in consulting and investments in the mining sector. Their joint venture is ACG Acquisition Company Limited. ACG Mining Limited is managed by Artem Volynets, a former top executive at the Russian aluminum giant Rusal, which is owned by Oleg Deripaska (sanctioned by the U.S. since 2018 due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine).

On this, the media write, ACP' ties with Russia do not end there. 

In 2024, Argentem Creek Partners provided a venture loan of $20 million to the Philippine fintech company Salmon, co-founded by Russian businessmen Pavel Fedorov and Georgy Chesakov. Fedorov is known as the "right-hand man" of the notorious Russian top manager Igor Sechin, having served as Vice President of the mining giant Norilsk Nickel and Vice President of Rosneft, an oil company 70% owned by the Russian government. 

The second one, as noted online, built his entire career at Tinkoff Group, whose main asset, Tinkoff Bank, was included in the European Union's tenth package of sanctions against Russia in early 2023.