Three companies linked to beleaguered former shipping player Michael Zolotas have officially ceased to exist in Greece.
Local authorities have deregistered Newlead Shipping and Newlead Bulkers, two shipmanagement outfits that featured Zolotas as their legal representative.
Newlead Shipping was set up in 2007 as the Piraeus-based arm of Panamanian entities within Zolotas’ NewLead group. Newlead Bulkers was formed in 2010 as an arm of a Liberian entity in the group.
Greece’s shipping ministry said in a document that it withdrew the companies’ licences because they had failed to provide any filings on their activities.
A third company deregistered by Greek authorities is Stamford Navigation, which was set up in 1995 by Michael Zolotas’ estranged wife, Chryssanthi Giara, and his brother, Panagiotis.
The three delistings complement a picture of outright collapse around the former owner. NewLead group had already abandoned its Piraeus offices last year, as TradeWinds reported. Shortly afterwards, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suspended the trading of shares of NewLead Holdings, his formerly US-listed outfit, for failing to file documents on time.
Last November, Piraeus Bank foreclosed on a Zolotas-owned property worth €420,000 ($494,600), to recoup part of a €568,500 debt. The bank ultimately bought the property at auction, TradeWinds is told.
Another online auction of Zolotas’ assets was scheduled to take place in October. It involved a house clearance, with assets including furniture, air conditioners, utensils, carpets, a home cinema, porcelain dolls, paintings, icons, cutlery, a microwave oven, a coffee machine and even a model of a former company bulker valued at €100.
Zolotas is cited as being a resident of Monaco in the auction papers filed to an official Greek website in November, but that is no longer the case following legal action this year.
His apartment in the principality was foreclosed on by the creditor bank for non-payment of the mortgage. The €3.79m net proceeds from the sale were seized by TransAsia Commodities, which is enforcing collection of $22.3m owed in damages by Zolotas, NewLead group and its key subsidiaries.
Similar proceedings are underway in Greece and in New York, where TransAsia is involved in litigation to seize Zolotas’ Manhattan apartment.
London-based TransAsia filed a civil case for breach of contract in December 2013, seeking compensation for a failed agreement to buy 110,000 tonnes of coal from NewLead JMEG, a coal-mining joint venture with NewLead group. The coal was never delivered.
Former associates
Meanwhile, two of Zolotas’ former business associates have been named in a complaint by the SEC in relation to NewLead group’s coal-mining activities.
Through their company Pallas Holdings, defendants Kautilya “Tony” Sharma and Perian Salviola were issued fake promissory notes by NewLead group as consideration for the shipping company’s purchase of Pallas-held coal-mining assets in Kentucky, the SEC claimed.
The notes were then sold on to investors, netting $6m for Sharma and Salviola, a portion of which was then kicked back to NewLead group, according to the complaint.
Zolotas did not respond to a request for comment.
