A senior executive of the private equity firm, Njord Partners, has deactivated his X (formerly known as Twitter) account after an investigation found that his firm has been awarded Russian state contracts from agencies controlled by sanctioned individuals, including an ally of Vladimir Putin.
The investigation by the Telegraph newspaper established that Arvid Trolle, who is partner and co-founder of Njord Partners LLP, used his X account full time to run anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian propaganda on the social media profile, (@arvidherluf). Essentially, the propaganda that Arvid Trolle ran backed the Russian narrative. Since the investigation came out, earlier this week, and was published worldwide, Arvid Trolle has taken off his social media account to make it inaccessible.
The investigation found that Arvid Trolle - the co-owner of RETN’s primary institutional investor, Njord Partners - was posting content on his X profile attacking Ukraine and President Zelensky using his account. Trolle’s partner at Njord Partners, Jakob Kjellberg, is currently the Chairman of RETN.
RETN Capital, which provides services across Europe, claims to have limited its exposure to Russia since the invasion of Ukraine and complied with sanctions, but instead its revenue from the country has rocketed since the war began, partly driven by contracts from sanctioned state entities, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
One of Arvid Trolle X repost stated: “Ukraine has always been a very dodgy place, run by friends of the globalists like Hunter Bider where incredibly shifty s*** goes on”.
Arvid Trolle also reposted: “Why is no one stating the obvious? Zelensky has regime-ending dirt on Biden and other Western leaders who have used Ukraine as their corruption playground for decades.”
Arvid Trolle, a former Oaktree Capital executive who donated £20,000 to Conservative MP Priti Patel when she was UK Home Secretary, also posted conspiracy theories on his X account, the Telegraph reported.
The profile (@arvidherluf) is no more available and a source at X confirmed the account was deactivated after RETN’s Russia secret links were exposed and Arvid Trolle’s campaign in support of the Russian regime and against the Ukraine were revealed. Russia has launched a brutal war on Ukraine for over two years, killing thousands of innocent locals.
RETN’s wholly owned Russian subsidiary received contracts from state entities which have been sanctioned since the war in Ukraine, according to Interfax-Spark, a database of official contracts.
In December 2022, RETN’s Russian arm won a contract with the Kurchatov Institute, a Russian state-controlled aviation research agency which is sanctioned by the UK and US. Its general director Mikhail Kovalchuk and his brother Yury, a close ally of President Putin, are subject to sanctions by the UK, Canada and Ukraine.
Two months later RETN was awarded a contract with the Russian State Enterprise Fuel and Energy Complex of St Petersburg – known as GUP TEK. Both GUP TEK and its general director, Ivan Boltenkov, are sanctioned by Ukraine.
RETN’s ties with the Russian state and sanctioned agencies are also apparent in the company’s 2022 financial statements, the newspaper reported. One of the main customers of RETN’s Russian subsidiary is PJSC Rostelecom, which is partially state-owned. The Russian subsidiary is also a client of the Russian bank Rosbank. Both Rosbank and Rostelecom are sanctioned by the West and Ukraine.
There are also questions over the current ownership of RETN Partners, after its major shareholdings were moved around following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Until January 2021, the largest individual beneficial shareholder of RETN Capital was Polina Maltseva, the daughter of Anatoly Danilitsky, a former Russian diplomat and executive director of the Russian National Reserve Corporation. Danilitsky was also previously the chairman of RETN’s Russian subsidiary.
The UK High Court once declared Maltseva to be a proxy for her father’s financial interests. She acquired her stake in RETN in 2016, shortly after her father resigned as chairman of its subsidiary. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Maltseva’s stake in RETN was transferred to Anna Tindl, a German lawyer based in Vienna, Austria.
Tindl is also now a director of RETN, but unlike Kjellberg she does not appear on its website.
Other former shareholders of Radio Ru included, Andrei Zolotov, head of the Vienna bureau of the Putin aligned RIA Novosti.
A spokesman for RETN said: “RETN Capital Ltd is fully in compliance with all relevant international sanctions.” “Our group policies require all the independent local operating subsidiaries to do likewise and the training and software tools to identify any potential sanctioned transactions are provided to them.”
Arvid Trolle’s anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia X profile is no longer available following this investigation.
