The scandalous Odesa terminal "Olympex" has changed owners and name
Photo: Elevatorist

Lavanda Spectrum has bought a controlling stake in the grain terminal Olympex Coupe International in the port of Odesa and renamed it Lavanda Terminal. About reports World Grain.

Karl Sturen, a Swedish businessman who has been working in Ukraine since the mid-1990s, has been appointed CEO of Lavanda Terminal.

Sturen is a co-founder and former owner of Chumak company, who in recent years has been engaged in green energy and for some time headed the subsidiary Naftogaz Bioenergy of Naftogaz of Ukraine.

The scandalous Odesa terminal "Olympex" has changed owners and name
Karl Sturen (photo: Windcraft-Ukraine)

"I am excited to take on this new opportunity. We have built a great team and have absolute confidence that we can transform the grain terminal, formerly known as Olympex, into a world-class, transparent facility," said Sturen.

"Ukraine has a huge potential for attracting investment, but it needs to get rid of the reputation that doing business in Ukraine is highly risky because of fraud," he said.

The Olympex terminal has an annual capacity of about 5 million tons, making it one of the largest in Ukraine.

In July control over the terminal was acquired by the American funds Argentem Creek Partners and Innovatus Capital Partners. This happened after a long legal battle with the previous owners, who are suspected of fraud.

At the end of June, the previous owners of the terminal Sergiy Groza and Volodymyr Naumenko of GNT Group received suspicion of fraud for defrauding a US investor. The investigation suggests that the group "imitated the destruction" of grain after the Russian invasion of the company in order to avoid repaying the loan.

GNT denied the allegations and accused Argentem Creek of using the loans for a hostile takeover.

  • In early 2022, Argentem Creek and Innovatus Capital initiated bankruptcy proceedings against Olympex Coupe International. This is the main asset of GNT Group in Ukraine, owned by Odesa businessmen Sergey Groza and Vladimir Naumenko.
  • The hedge funds claimed that they had provided almost $100 million in loans secured by grain and assets of the Odesa terminal, and that the terminal owners failed to repay the loans on time.