The Daily Mail claimed on Monday that the enormous transaction is related to a previously reported $3.5 million charge Baturina paid Hunter’s real estate corporation to get access to the American business market, as demonstrated by documents seized by the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery.
The $40 million property purchase, as described by Hunter, is structured as a pooled real estate fund to be invested in profitable U.S. properties over the long term. Sophisticated investors and seasoned fund managers commonly use these investment vehicles. Due to the complexity of fund transactions, these organizations typically have onerous reporting requirements to regulatory agencies.
According to the Daily Mail, Hunter acquired seven office complexes in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Alabama for $52 million in cash and $160 million in debt. Rosemont Realty, Hunter’s real estate fund, has collected $69.7 million to invest 2.15 million square feet of office space.
The business Hunter committed $15 million of its funds to the pool. Nobody knows where Hunter’s company, Hunter’s Business, received the millions of dollars it put into the elaborate plan.
According to Forbes, Baturina, the wealthiest woman in Russia in 2012, contributed $40 million from her Swiss firm, Inteco Management AG, a construction and plastics behemoth, to the fund.
Hunter’s prospectus said that, according to screenshots provided to the Kazakhstani Initiative for Asset Recovery by Baturina’s brother Kenes Rakishev, a well-connected Kazakh businessman and one of Hunter’s partners, “Rosemont Realty has signed contracts to buy real estate for $212,580,000.”
In 2015, Rakishev was seen with then-Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C., one of the 17 times Joe Biden has been associated with the Biden family business:
According to the Investment Partnership’s governing documents, “the Managing General Partner will contribute at least $15,000,000 of share capital under the same terms as the other partners.” The Russian prospectus translation stated that “the Partners will contribute $69,700,000 to the Managing Partnership.”
In light of the recent revelations surrounding a Biden family business endeavor during Joe Biden’s stint as vice president, Hunter’s acceptance of such a large sum of infused cash raises concerns about whether he sold his influence to the White House. Seasoned fund managers frequently carry out this difficult investment technique with the support of investors who have trust in the fund managers’ track records.
According to Breitbart News, Baturina and her late husband Yuri Luzhkov, a former Moscow mayor suspected of real estate corruption, resided in the United Kingdom in 2014, two years after the real estate transaction:
Baturina donated $3.5 million to Hunter through a wire transfer in 2014, according to a report published by Senate Republicans in 2020. They said that their relationship was “financially related” but did not expand more.
During Joe Biden’s term as vice president, Hunter engaged in real estate deals while serving on the board of Burisma and earning $80,000 per month. Upon Joe Biden’s departure from office, it was halved.