FSMA auditor: Nyrstar and directors concealed €719 million in debt
- Kris Vansanten
- Sep 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 17
Our years of appealing for transparency in the sour Nyrstar file finally seems to have been heard. In this article by Bert Broens in De Tijd, it is now also explicitly confirmed that the Auditor of the FSMA concludes, after years of investigation, that Nyrstar has misled the market by not communicating transparently.
For example, no less than 719 million euros in debt were kept hidden from the market. But there is more: our thesis that Trafigura has served itself to hidden profit dividends for years seems to be also confirmed, as mentioned in an ex-ante report by McKinsey & Company (which we unfortunately could not find back in the numerous (ex-post) reports that Nyrstar ordered during and after restructuring from various 'experts' and which were shared by the company’s lawyers in civil lawsuits).
Anyone who makes a connection between these two events can easily see how it was possible that the financial analysts who followed this company did not sound the alarm bell sooner: it seems that the excessive debt accumulated by Nyrstar, presumably the result of years and years of draining Nyrstar by Trafigura via "value leaks", was simply kept hidden from the market until the signal was given for a hastily implemented restructuring in which Trafigura did not surprisingly come out as the winner. We are confident that the on-going criminal investigation will bring out the truth here, even if it will still be a long wait until the first results.
It is telling that Nyrstar was and is still invariably portrayed to the outside world as a company doomed to death that can only be saved by the white knight Trafigura, while in internal documents by Morgan Stanley and Freshfields, the company is mentioned by the code name "Helena". In ancient mythology, she was the Greek queen and daughter of Zeus, and was considered as the most beautiful woman in the world as well as the reason for the Trojan War. This characteristic schizophrenic split applies to the internal and external communication at Nyrstar as well.
Isn't it time for thorough reflection on the rules and ethics surrounding compliance and enforceability when it comes to the Belgian corporate law community, service providers and PR firms? And how can successive Supervisory Board members declare that the company's annual accounts were approved -- albeit with a reservation that was secretly cancelled a few years ago?
automated translation by Deepl
