FAKE: Volodymyr Zelenskyi purchased a French bank for €1.1 billion

A story allegedly from the French TV channel TV12 is being circulated online. In the video, a journalist claims that Volodymyr Zelenskyi purchased the French investment bank Milleis Banque Privée for €1.1 billion through his offshore company Maltex Multicapital Corp in early February. Also, according to the journalist, the deal was supposedly facilitated by the Rothschild family firm, Rothschild & Co, where French President Emmanuel Macron worked from 2008 to 2012.

This is fake. Volodymyr Zelenskyi did not buy this bank; since 2017, it has been owned by the investment fund AnaCap. At the end of February, representatives of the fund stated that they do not plan to relinquish management of the bank.

Volodymyr Zelenskyi did not buy this bank. Some inaccuracies indicate a forgery.

First, the French TV channel TV12, whose report is being circulated by Russians, does not exist. Media with the logo used in the video also do not exist. The video is shared only by Russian and pro-Russian media, and no reliable French media outlets have reported on this case. We also found no information online about the journalist featured in the video.

Second, the video used fake documents. As “proof” of the purchase, the journalist presented a document allegedly concerning a due diligence check of the bank before its supposed acquisition. In fact, the audit document does not in any way prove the bank’s sale. There is also no evidence of involvement by Rothschild & Co in the deal, where Emmanuel Macron indeed worked from 2008 to 2012.

In 2021, there was a leak of more than 11.9 million confidential files, which included information about Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Foreign and Ukrainian investigative journalists analyzed the data and established that Zelenskyi and his associates have a network of foreign offshore companies. One of them is Maltex Multicapital Corp, mentioned in the fake video. Before his presidency, Zelenskyi transferred his share of this company to his then-assistant Serhii Shefir. Nevertheless, the company did not purchase Milleis Banque Privée.

Since 2017, the bank has been owned by the British investment fund AnaCap. In an interview with Le Figaro on February 23, representatives of the AnaCap investment fund stated that they currently do not plan to exit Milleis Banque Privée. The bank’s CEO, Nicolas Hubert, also noted that they are not planning to sell the bank.

Thus, the statements by the Russians are fake. Their goal is to discredit Ukraine and reduce its international support. VoxCheck has previously debunked similar fake videos, which falsely claimed that Zelenskyi had bought a hotel in Courchevel and Hitler’s mansion in Germany.