Makarov AllegationsAt this point in time, the ties to Putin aren't entirely clear, but there's definitely some indications he might be.
Trying to find information on Makarov is quite difficult to obtain, which I think means he's really good at what he does. The guy is a ghost, but he ran the largest private oil and gas company in Russia until Rosneft acquired it in 2013. Itera used to have some sketchy relationships with Gazprom when it was 38% state-owned. Reading some of the articles from over a decade ago, it wouldn't be surprising if he was in cahoots with Putin.
Here's some examples:
https://www.rferl.org/a/1097815.html https://jamestown.org/program/russian-oligarchs-and-their-fight-for-survival-an-investigative-report/ https://www.chemanager-online.com/en/news/rosneft-take-over-russian-gas-firm-itera-3-billion https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/the-cowboy-cocktail-how-wyoming-became-one-of-the-worlds-top-tax-havens/ What makes me think he does have some inside information here is in regards to the timing of the note conversion. Back in October-December I was talking a lot about a major catalyst coming within the next 18 months (
October post). I never would have imagined it was a Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the note conversion was foreshadowing a material development.
My question at this point is: if he wasn't converting debt to shares in anticipation of $100+ oil, what was the real reason?