Roys Poyiadjis

Last updated

Roys Poyiadjis
Roys poyiadjis.jpg
Poyiadjis in 2011
Born (1965-08-14) 14 August 1965 (age 58)
Famagusta, Cyprus
NationalityCypriot
CitizenshipCypriot and British
Education University of Kent
London Business School
Occupation(s)Entrepreneur, financier
Criminal chargeSecurities fraud
Criminal penalty$200 million

Roys Poyiadjis (born 14 August 1965) is a Greek Cypriot entrepreneur and financier. He is most notable for his role in the largest Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) settlement with an individual, $200 million, after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit security fraud. [1] [2]

Contents

Biography

Poyiadjis was born in Cyprus, and on 14 August 1974, his ninth birthday, he and his family fled their homes in Famagusta as a result of Turkish invasion of Cyprus. They lived in a refugee camp. [3] [4] He married Donna Florence Costanzo Poyiadjis in June 2000 and has two children. [5] Poyiadjis received a bachelor's degree in 1989 from the University of Kent in England [6] and an MBA from the London Business School in 1993. In 1988, he won the gold medal in the British Universities Boxing Championships [7] in the Light Heavyweight division. [8]

Poyiadjis worked for Morgan Stanley Co. and Lehman Brothers International Ltd between 1993 and 1996 in the United Kingdom. [6] He later formed a merchant bank called Alpha Capital, which focused on funding technology companies. [3] [6]

According to Forbes magazine, in 1997 Poyiadjis met Lycourgos Kyprianou, a fellow Greek Cypriot with a software company called AremisSoft. Poyiadjis invested $7 million in AremisSoft in October 1997 and helped Kyprianou secure another $12 million of financing in March 1998. The company went public on Nasdaq in April 1999. Poyiadjis, became president and vice-chairman in 1998, and became CEO in 2000 (Kyprianou became chairman and chief technology officer). By August 2000, Poyiadjis and Kyprianou owned about 30% of the company, and in Feb. 2001, they became co-chief executive officers. [3] Irwin L. Jacobs was one of AremisSoft's largest shareholders. [9] Poyiadjis resigned from AremisSoft on 30 September 2001. [10]

In 2005 Poyiadjis founded Platinum Capital Partners, Inc a holding company for the Poyiadjis Family Office with investment activities primarily focused in technology, private equity, real estate, and special situations. [11]

In 2014, Poyiadjis and Martua Sitorus, the co-founder of Wilmar International formed a partnership to create the largest biofuel power plant in Japan. The plant’s 20-year feed-in tariff is valued at US$1.5 billion. In 2012, Poyiadjis began a venture to build the first independent power producer on the Island of Cyprus. But due to the Greek and Cypriot economic crisis, the project changed course resulting in a biofuel power plant in Japan. [12] [13] [14] [15]

From left to right: Archbishop Chrysostomos II, Roys Poyiadjis, and President Nicos Anastasiades at a ceremony to celebrate the repatriation of a mosaic stolen from the church of Panagia Kanakaria. Poyiadjis wears the Golden Medallion of St. Paul, awarded to him for his contribution in the repatriation. RoysPoyiadjisMedal.jpg
From left to right: Archbishop Chrysostomos II, Roys Poyiadjis, and President Nicos Anastasiades at a ceremony to celebrate the repatriation of a mosaic stolen from the church of Panagia Kanakaria. Poyiadjis wears the Golden Medallion of St. Paul, awarded to him for his contribution in the repatriation.

Roys Poyiadjis, along with an art historian and another Cypriot businessman, were responsible for the repatriation of the mosaic of St. Andrew in 2018. The mosaic was a work of art stolen from the church of Panagia Kanakaria in 1975. [16] [17]

In April 2018 Poyiadjis submitted an investment offer to acquire the Omonia FC. On 24 May 2018, he decided to withdraw his offer to acquire Omonia, stating that in his opinion the acquisition process lacked transparency and the Omonia FC board had already predetermined the outcome in favor of Stavros Papastavrou before the general assembly vote. [18] [19] [20]

Securities and Exchange Commission settlement

In May 2001, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began to investigate AremisSoft after a New York Times article suggested that the company overstated the value of a contract to automate the National Healthcare Service in Bulgaria. [21] On 4 October 2001, the SEC filed a civil enforcement action against AremisSoft. On 19 December 2001, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York filed an indictment charging Poyiadjis and Kyprianou with securities fraud in connection with AremisSoft. The funds under question were in bank accounts on the Isle of Man. [22]

Both Poyiadjis and Kyprianou were in Cyprus at the time of the indictment. In 2005, Poyiadjis voluntarily returned to the United States to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit security fraud. [23] Poyiadjis' proceeds from the sale of AremisSoft stock were $150 million. The case reached a global settlement when Poyiadjis agreed to pay $200 million. [24] According to Lawyer Magazine, this is the largest SEC case of its kind. [25] In July 2010, Poyiadjis was sentenced by Judge Laura Taylor Swain to three years of probation. At Poyiadjis's sentencing, Judge Swain stated that she took into consideration "the extent of Mr. Poyiadjis's cooperation," and "Mr. Poyiadjis's remorse, as reflected both in his words and actions." [24] Lycourgos Kyprianou remains a fugitive from justice in the United States. [24]

The case was described in the book Selling America Short, by Richard C. Sauer, which is about the author's time as an Assistant Director with the US Securities and Exchange Commission: "What was supposed to be a quick legal smash and grab [for the SEC] is turning into procedural purgatory." [26]

Philanthropy

Poyiadjis became involved with the New York University School of Medicine when Professor Rodolfo Llinas diagnosed Poyiadjis' brother, Alkis Poyiadjis, with schizoaffective disorder and referred him for successful treatment in Switzerland. Poyiadjis has since donated several million dollars to the Department of Physiology and Neuroscience and in support of Dr. Llinas' research studies. Poyiadjis has also volunteered to participate in various research studies conducted by the medical school. [27] Poyiadjis also provided financial support to the Department of Functional Neurosurgery at the University Hospital at Zurich, where Alkis was treated. [28]

At the NYU School of Medicine, Poyiadjis formed three companies (NeuroResonance LLC, NeuroControl Systems LLC, NeuroInterface LLC) that are commercialising drugs and devices to suppress thalamocortical dysrhythmia. [29]

In 2013, Poyiadjis established a scholarship fund at the University of Cyprus to provide three annual scholarships for ten years to be awarded to three students who demonstrate academic excellence and are in financial need. These scholarships are awarded to students in humanities, pure and applied sciences and engineering. [30] [31]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insider trading</span> Public company stock or securities trading using nonpublic information

Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities based on material, nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, some kinds of trading based on insider information are illegal. This is because it is seen as unfair to other investors who do not have access to the information, as the investor with insider information could potentially make larger profits than a typical investor could make. The rules governing insider trading are complex and vary significantly from country to country. The extent of enforcement also varies from one country to another. The definition of insider in one jurisdiction can be broad and may cover not only insiders themselves but also any persons related to them, such as brokers, associates, and even family members. A person who becomes aware of non-public information and trades on that basis may be guilty of a crime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Milken</span> American financier (born 1946)

Michael Robert Milken is an American financier. He is known for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds, and his conviction and sentence following a guilty plea on felony charges for violating U.S. securities laws. Milken's compensation while head of the high-yield bond department at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s exceeded $1 billion over a four-year period, a record for U.S. income at that time. With a net worth of US$6 billion as of 2022, he is among the richest people in the world.

Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the person of that property, by means of force or fear; that is, it is a larceny or theft accomplished by an assault. Precise definitions of the offence may vary between jurisdictions. Robbery is differentiated from other forms of theft by its inherently violent nature ; whereas many lesser forms of theft are punished as misdemeanors, robbery is always a felony in jurisdictions that distinguish between the two. Under English law, most forms of theft are triable either way, whereas robbery is triable only on indictment. The word "rob" came via French from Late Latin words of Germanic origin, from Common Germanic raub "theft".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kidnapping</span> Unlawful abduction of someone and holding them captive

In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will. Kidnapping is typically but not necessarily accomplished by use of force or fear; i.e., it also usually involves menace/assault or/and battery; but it is still kidnapping without those additional elements, or if a person is enticed to enter the vehicle or dwelling willingly.

The 2003 mutual fund scandal was the result of the discovery of illegal late trading and market timing practices on the part of certain hedge fund and mutual fund companies.

A binary option is a financial exotic option in which the payoff is either some fixed monetary amount or nothing at all. The two main types of binary options are the cash-or-nothing binary option and the asset-or-nothing binary option. The former pays some fixed amount of cash if the option expires in-the-money while the latter pays the value of the underlying security. They are also called all-or-nothing options, digital options, and fixed return options (FROs).

Penny stocks are common shares of small public companies that trade for less than one dollar per share. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) uses the term "Penny stock" to refer to a security, a financial instrument which represents a given financial value, issued by small public companies that trade at less than $5 per share. Penny stocks are priced over-the-counter, rather than on the trading floor. The term "penny stock" refers to shares that, prior to the SEC's classification, traded for "pennies on the dollar". In 1934, when the United States government passed the Securities Exchange Act to regulate any and all transactions of securities between parties which are "not the original issuer", the SEC at the time disclosed that equity securities which trade for less than $5 per share could not be listed on any national stock exchange or index.

Foreign exchange fraud is any trading scheme used to defraud traders by convincing them that they can expect to gain a high profit by trading in the foreign exchange market. Currency trading became a common form of fraud in early 2008, according to Michael Dunn of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Hammond</span> American political activist and hacker

Jeremy Hammond, alias sup_g, is an American anarchist activist and former computer hacker from Chicago. He founded the computer security training website HackThisSite in 2003. He was first imprisoned over the Protest Warrior hack in 2005 and was later convicted of computer fraud in 2013 for hacking the private intelligence firm Stratfor and releasing data to WikiLeaks, and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Herb Greenberg is an American journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernie Madoff</span> American fraudster and financier (1938–2021)

Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financial criminal and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65 billion. He was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. Madoff's firm had two basic units: a stock brokerage and an asset management business; the Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">P. Kevin Castel</span> American judge (born 1950)

Peter Kevin Castel is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Hoffenberg</span> American businessman and fraudster (1945–2022)

Steven Jude Hoffenberg was an American businessman and fraudster. He was the founder, CEO, president, and chairman of Towers Financial Corporation, a debt collection agency, which was later discovered to be a Ponzi scheme. In 1993, he rescued the New York Post from bankruptcy, and briefly owned the paper. Towers Financial collapsed in 1993, and in 1995 Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to bilking investors out of $475 million. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, plus a $1 million fine and $463 million in restitution. The U.S. SEC considered his financial crimes to be "one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history".

Lycourgos Kyprianou is a Cypriot businessman, and the former chairman of GlobalSoft and AremisSoft Corp. Together with his business partner, Roys Poyiadjis, he has been charged with defrauding investors of $565 million. He fled to Cyprus, where he remains, and in 2018, the Cyprus justice ministry confirmed that no Cypriot has been extradited to the US.

John Trevor Roche Baines was a British convicted criminal, formerly a businessman, who claimed to have amassed an estimated fortune of over £130 million, through banking, financial trading, and investment in the Miss World competition.

International Investment Group (IIG) is an American financial institution that specializes in short-term trade finance and commercial finance with a focus on emerging markets. Through its affiliate IIG Capital it provides financing to small and medium-sized merchants, traders and processors with a need for supply chain financing.

Stephen D. Richards is a New Zealand-born technology industry business leader who rose through the ranks of Computer Associates International, to become the Executive Vice President responsible for Worldwide Sales. His role in the company's 35 day month accounting scandal led to his resignation; he was the second CA executive to be indicted and sentenced.

Mark (Meir) Nordlicht is the founder and former chief investment officer of Platinum Partners, a U.S. based hedge fund, which came to be known for its unusual investment strategies becoming the subject of a series of controversial criminal and legal actions. According to an indictment, Nordlicht, in addition to the fund's co-CIO and CFO, were accused of running a "ponzi like scheme". A jury acquitted all defendants on the core charges relating to the Ponzi scheme operation, but found two of the lead executives guilty on the lesser charges relating to a bond-rigging scheme. In an unusual move, Judge Brian Cogan, presiding in the case of United States vs. Nordlicht, et al., reversed the jurors' guilty verdicts and acquitted the firm's co-CIO of the lesser charges in a full acquittal, but ordered a new trial to be set for Nordlicht. An appellate court later upheld the convictions.

References

  1. ↑ "Insider Trading Charges Drive Up SEC Settlements". Website. Compliance X. Retrieved 26 October 2015.
  2. ↑ "SEC press release. "Former AremisSoft CEO Roys Poyiadjis Pays Approximately $200 Million in Settlement of SEC Fraud Case." 2005–87
  3. 1 2 3 Brown, Heidi. "No Island is an Island." Forbes. 7 August 2000.
  4. ↑ Scheider, Jessica. "The Ghost Town of Cyprus: Roys Poyiadjis Tells His Witness Account of the 1974 Turkish Invasion." Famagusta Gazette. 2012
  5. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Sentencing Memorandum Letters of Support. Tab 1. Accessed via PACER
  6. 1 2 3 Bloomberg Businessweek. Executive Profile: Roys Poyiadjis
  7. ↑ British Universities Boxing Championships
  8. ↑ James, David (1988). "Boxing Championships" (PDF). Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  9. ↑ Sauer, Richard C. (26 April 2010). Selling America Short: The SEC and Market Contrarians in the Age of Absurdity. Wiley. pp.  57. ISBN   0470582111.
  10. ↑ "Item 5: Changes in Executive Officers and Directors". Form 8k. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 23 March 2012.
  11. ↑ Platinum Capital Partners, Inc. website. "About Us."
  12. ↑ Von Mayer, Wintress. "Two Explosions a World Apart: From Disaster Comes New Power.” AltEnergyMag. 6 Oct. 2015
  13. ↑ Phile News. “Πώς o Κύπριος Ρόης Πογιατζής δημιούργησε την μεγαλύτερη μονάδα παραγωγής ηλεκτρικής ενέργειας.”
  14. ↑ Sigma Live. “Κύπριος με την μεγαλύτερη μονάδα βιοκαυσίμων στην Ιαπωνία”
  15. ↑ Sigma Live. "Cypriot behind biggest biofuel plant in Japan." 16 Oct. 2015
  16. ↑ "Ceremony to greet return of priceless looted Kanakaria mosaic - Cyprus Mail". Cyprus Mail. 23 April 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2018.
  17. ↑ "Cyprus Living Magazine June 2018". Issuu. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  18. ↑ "Αποσύρεται "πυροβολώντας" ο Ρόης Πογιατζής". The National Herald GR. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  19. ↑ "Και επίσημα ο Ρόης Πογιατζής για την Ομόνοια". Alpha News Live (in Greek). Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  20. ↑ SigmaliveSports. "Αποσύρεται ο Ρόης Πογιατζής! | News" . Retrieved 29 November 2018.
  21. ↑ Berenson, Alex. "The Markets: Marketplace; Wall Street’s New Interest in Bulgaria." The New York Times. 17 May 2001.
  22. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Exhibits to Sentencing Memo. Exhibit D. Accessed via PACER
  23. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing. Accessed via PACER
  24. 1 2 3 Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Court transcript
  25. ↑ Malkin, Brendan. "Isle of Man Hosts Largest Ever SEC Fraud Case." The Lawyer. 9 June 2003.
  26. ↑ Sauer, Richard C. (26 April 2010). Selling America Short: The SEC and Market Contrarians in the Age of Absurdity. Wiley. pp.  84. ISBN   0470582111.
  27. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Sentencing Memorandum Letters of Support. Tab 6. Accessed via PACER
  28. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Sentencing Memorandum Letters of Support. Tab 8. Accessed via PACER
  29. ↑ Crim No. 01-CR-01177 (LTS). Sentencing Memorandum Letters of Support. Tab 16. Accessed via PACER
  30. ↑ Hashagen, Stephanie. "Entrepreneur donates €150,000." Cyprus Weekly.
  31. ↑ Sigma Live. Για μια φιλανθρωπική πλατφόρμα"
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.