Raul Pint (47) is an international man. Not limited to the panama link, his residences feature Budapest and Prague.
Also, the enterprises come with new names strictly international: in Czech, Polish, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian. At first glance, the names have nothing to do with activity of the company. At times, they look like random pairs of words from a sewing machine manual.
As indeed acknowledged by Mr Pint, he is being inspired by Eastern-European languages and the new business names mean not much.
«The trick is we are releasing business names,» he said. «A while back, about ten years back, we were talking about that with several people that it was terribly difficult to find a normal business name. It kind of stuck with me. As an act of charity, we are simply releasing business names in Estonian or English, replacing them with such as nobody needs.»
For some of the enterprises, the new owner in Panama has also nominated an international board. Board members feature people like Stanka Mircheva living in Croatia, Taku Akaike (Mongolia), Popa Kornelia (Romania) and Yalniz Asir (Turkey). More frequently, however, it is Mr Pint personally who sits at board of companies under liquidation.
For the most part, the companies are owned by Transatlantic International Brokers Corp (TIBC). According to documents, TIBC is based in the office of a business consultancy similar to the Panama-scandalised Mossack Fonseca named Mata & Pitti, at Ricardo Arias St, Panama City.
According to the papers, president of TIBC is a Panamanian resident Jose Francisco Castellon who has awarded Mr Pint’s partner Andrus Räppo full powers to act on the company’s behalf globally.
All in all, TIBC is or has been a party in 404 companies in Estonian commercial register. Some of the enterprises under liquidation have come from TIBC to be owned by Mr Räppo’s company Aaretz Law OÜ.
Why the very Panama? «Makes no difference, what one uses,» noted Mr Pint.
Mr Pint will not disclose who owns TIBC. «No, it is not mine. Definitely not legally.»
A couple of years ago, Mr Pint told the ETV «Eyewitness» show that he has helped wind up nearly 1,500 firms in Estonia.
At the moment, the register holds 168 firms owned by TIBC. Of these, 94 are under warning of being deleted from commercial register for failure to submit annual statement; four are under forced termination warning for unsuitable board; one is under liquidation and one is bankrupt.