Recent activities and the bad financial situation of Creta Farm, a Greek company which specialises in the production of meat products, have led to an investigation of the company’s activities by the judicial authorities in Greece. Deloitte Business Solutions was instructed to undertake an audit as part of the investigation and to produce a report of its findings.
Amongst the findings is that, two shareholders of the parent company established a new company, Novaplot, whose main activity is the management of the portfolio of intangible securities of Creta Farm. As Novaplot was founded by the two main shareholders, it is not considered as a subsidiary of Creta Farm, but as a connected entity. Creta Farm “donated” to Novaplot not only the patent portfolio but also a large initial lumpsum, an amount of money per year and a 2% share on Creta Farm’s sales. Besides the above, it is also questionable how the value of their intellectual portfolio was estimated, as every valuation of IP assets is a very complicated process.
From the above, we conclude that the creation of Novaplot was not done to serve the interests of Crete Farm in accordance with international practices, and hope that no other company will use their intellectual property as a vehicle to mislead executives and shareholders in order to create large, low-taxed profits.
Read the full article in Greek, here: www.capital.gr
