Pavol Krúpa has been barred from managing the Arca Capital CEE investment fund belonging to the group he founded 15 years ago.
He is missing permission from the Czech National Bank, which accuses the financier of concealing information and other administrative offenses.
According to the central bank, Krupa is untrustworthy. The Slovak billionaire disagrees with the CNB’s opinion and arguments.
The Central Bank banned Slovakian financier Pavol Krúpas from managing the Arca Capital CEE investment fund belonging to the Arca Capital group.
In the application for permission to run the fund managing the assets for nearly 900 million crowns, Krúpa under the CNB concealed important information. The regulator, in addition, says the billionaire has been acting in the past for the management of companies that have been penalized for capital market abuse. The Central Bank has literally said that Krupa will not trust her.
“I do not know what the CNB can do for me, we have paid all the commitments from all our relationships so far, our funds are making money to our clients, their yields are in tens of percent, and the shareholders who have been loyal since its inception have additionally approved the proposal, to become the chairman of the fund’s board of directors, “Krúpa said. As the head of the fund, he wanted to take the lead to bring the strategy he is applying to Arca Capital as a whole. In addition, he was more credible to the shareholders than the existing management of the fund. “The shareholders want me on the board, and as the fund grows, they want me to bear direct responsibility for their investments.”
Untrustworthy and ineligible for management of the fund, according to CNB. Krúpa, among other things because he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of Arca Capital Global Equity at a time when the company was acting irresponsibly under the Central Bank. The first administrative offense was in October 2013, which the CNB considered to be serious, Krúpa-managed company was punished by a fine of 2.5 million crowns.
The second case, which resulted in a fine from the central bank, took place between 2014 and 2015. It involved Arca Investments, where Krúpa also served as chairman of the board. According to the CNB, it published its public offer of bonds on its website without publishing an approved prospectus. The fine in this case was 600 thousand crowns.
“Apart from occasional aggressive tactics, there is not even a scratch on our repuatation,” he says, one of his strategies is to find companies in trouble and exert pressure on them to improve earnings.
The third reason why the CNB rejected Krúp’s request to approve its head of the investment fund is for concealing information. The request also included a questionnaire where Krúpa had to state whether he had been in charge of a company that faced a fine for an administrative offense in the last ten years. The case of 2013 linked to Arca Capital Global Equity Krúpa mentioned, the second offense of 2014 and 2015 has not been mentioned.
“Arca Investments was in Slovakia, we only described companies in the Czech Republic. Arca Investments is not subject to the supervision of the Czech National Bank,” Krúpa argues.
The negative opinion of the Czech National Bank, which is the head of the Krúpa Fund, means that the fund will now look to the board of directors for someone else to copy the strategy of the parent company Arca Capital.
“I trust the existing fund managers, but my investor should have been an impulse to show responsibility for me.” Shareholders gave me confidence, the CNB did not trust me, “said the Slovak entrepreneur.
The conclusions of the CNB’s decision show that it is still too short for Krúpa to be trusted in the eyes of the central bank after the tortures of its managed companies from 2013 to 2015. “The principle of re-establishing the credibility of the person under consideration can only be considered at the earliest after a ten-year period of defaults,” says the central bank.