Wargaming to buy a bank on Cyprus

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Source: http://www.sigmalive.com/news/oikonomia/73169
Thanks to Bishopcy for this one

Hello everyone,

as we all know, Wargaming.net (or rather, Wargaming Public Company Ltd.) is located on Cyprus. I think we all can guess the reason (no, it’s not the weather). Now, what do you do when you have a lot of money? You put it in a bank? Nah. You buy a bank.

According to the abovelinked article (and if any of you guys understand Greek and is an economist, feel free to correct me if I wrote something wrong), Wargaming made a 50 million EUR bid yesterday to buy a majority share in one of the three biggest banks on Cyprus, the Hellenic Bank. Apparently, Wargaming has one competitor for the share purchase, whose bid was however smaller. The reason for this investment seems to be the fact that the bank is in dire need of recapitalization (35mil EUR), which both offers seem to cover.

This article contains one more interesting fact: while the turnover for Wargaming in 2012 was 217 mil. EUR, for first 6 months of 2013 it is already 234 mil. EUR. The article also mentions the Golden Joystick Wargaming recieved as a sign of the company health and stability.

117 thoughts on “Wargaming to buy a bank on Cyprus”

    • Taxes is a form of force. If I where to tell others around me that they should pay me fees from their income or face the consequence of me throwing them in a cage or execution then I am considered a criminal. When government does it they label it a tax. If governments didnt extort the private wages of individuals then you would not have had tax havens like cypress since taxes wouldnt exist.

        • You pay for streets with gasoline taxes and toll highways; schools, public employees, and most other things come from property taxes. Income taxes are mostly used to fund unemployment programs. This is usually not such a bad thing but in the US Obama changed unemployment benefits so that if you have had a job for at least six months you can collect it. You don’t have to have a job to collect, and you can just quit your job, collect it, live for free, then get another job for 6 mo, then quit collect your free money and basically live off of other peoples income (since unemployment benefits come from income taxes.) A lot of people (mostly those of us who actually have [and keep] jobs and are having our income taxes wasted on stupid bums) really hate Obama’s complete stupidity (encouraging people to not work.)

          • Unless something has changed recently, you do not get unemployment if you willingly quit, only if you are fired or layed off by choice of the employer.

      • It’s almost like a monopoly on the use of force by a governing authority is the very basis of large-scale civilization.

        • Lord Humungus would be a good way of describing government it makes demands that individuals must comply or violence is force upon you the best part is that as government grows the only this it becomes accountable to is the wealthy lobbyists feed it. I wonder why is it that the wealthiest counties of the United States are in Virginia near Washington DC. Why is it that the individuals in these counties happen to be lobbyists and government officials.

          • Because the gummint taxmen will totally burn down your house, rape your wife and sell you and your entire family to slavery if you fail to pay whatever they decided was your due this week right?
            Idiot.
            You have not the slightest idea of the actual evolution of statehood from naked Hobbesian warlordism to modern civil society do you? Or the importance of little somethings the scholars term “monopoly of legitimate force” and “territorial sovereignty”?

        • In a civilized world people do not use force on others to garnish their wages for services and goods they may not personally need or use. the income tax was implemented in 1913 the bill behind it was lobbied by fat wealthy bankers. Before the income tax we still afforded all those goods and services at a state level without taxes income people at the state level had greater influences choosing the costs they bare rather than at a federal level where a few men that think they know better than you demand your wages.

          • All laws are ultimately based on force, or rather the implied threat thereof. Were this not so they would not be worth the paper they’re printed on, as rules that are not or cannot be enforced if need be can be disregarded at will by anyone who feels like it. (There’s no particular shortage of examples.)

            Also I’m guessing you haven’t the foggiest about the history of taxation.

      • You sir are an idiot (or an American). You see, in civilized parts of the world, like i.e. Europe, we know on what our taxes go. Sure, a part of them is wasted, and there are always loonies like the French and their 75% tax for the rich, but thanks to a tax system we have many public services availiable for the citizens, like health care, education, or majority of the roads (or in the case of the Germans – even the highways).

          • I on the other hand am also European, and think that people who think taxes should be removed are speaking utter bullshit. Though the principle he is describing is true, the underlying principle everyone has in mind is that without those taxes you would not have certain public services.

            Now in countries where public services are all but nonexistent there is probably that feeling ‘why pay taxes?’, but where people still get services for their money, services which are not profitable enough for private entrepreneurs and never will be(or the public could not afford them), but still are necessary for the common good… taxes are a necessary evil.

            The other side or the coin is the right you have, as a citizen, to influence the things you pay taxes for. It may be very hard and tedious to exert that influence, but it is still possible. Especially if other citizens with some awareness join you… Which is not possible if you are just sitting in front of the TV and watching Fox, like the majority of a certain population that dislikes taxes.

            • Not everyone agrees as to what they are being taxed for. If I as an individual do not want nor use the government service provided why then should he be taxed for it. I for one have my own retirement plan why should I have to pay for social security or face possible tax evasion? Your argument is only sound if the person paying the taxes actually received something of value in return for their payments. My original argument is not about getting rid of government its about allowing the individual to choose his own costs rather than a powerful entity use violence to coerce them into submission

            • Secondly Fox like MSNBC and CNN are notthing but biased why would I watch it at all but your attempt to try to categorize me based on stereotypes of political thought tells me alot about you

            • You pay for the continued functioning and existence of the society around you; if you prefer to not make use of the goods and services it makes available to you in return that is entirely your business. It is not, however, any argument against either the fundamental necessity of taxation to pay for the running costs of that society and its infrastructure, or the dispersal of the expenses across the populace so that if a given individual suddenly requires such services the costs do not fall upon him all at once which can be quite ruinous to people of even average income – to speak nothing of the poor.
              You know the basic operating logic of insurance? Same thing.

          • Because you don’t live in the “good part” of Europe, The same applies to Hungary, you have to pay for highways, there is free healthcare but to get rly good doctors you mostly have to find private ones, and the roads are full of potholes… But our politicians are runing around in expensice Audi A8s and building football stadtions, so I guess we know were the tax “forints” go but it isn’t the right place :D

          • I am European and I think you fail socioeconomics HARD.

            Or what exactly was your alternative masterblasterplan for funding elementaries like law enforcement, the fire brigade and the military to speak nothing of standard-of-living stuff like public education and actually affordable healthcare?

            • I think he was originally only referring to the income tax.
              Secondly, it is a characteristic of conservatives everywhere that those who are not like them, are against them. If you are not a working middle class, standard citizen it’s only because you are either
              a) Lazy
              b) Inept.
              In either case, money earned through his hard 9 to 5 daily work should not go towards feeding, sheltering and clothing such individuals.

              My point would have been just … sigh. Move on.

            • You know what was the privilege the old aristocracy most bitterly fought to retain back in the day? Their assorted tax exemptions.

            • I was born into poverty it was my move to the United States and my parents hard work that allowed me a better life. You quaintly put me in a categorize me for my opinions using nothing but political stereotypes. I never said people are lazy and inept because they are working class after all I am also working class. People should not be forced from their wages to pay taxes into government programs they will never use. I will never use Obamacare why should I use my wages to pay for others who can afford Obamacare?
              I am a conservative but in the truest sense of the word I believe in the conservation of the constitution after all straying from it has brought us to this point.

          • Kelomies The United States did not have an income tax until 1913 and still had police, teachers, railroads, streets. If you would have paid attention to the comment you would see that I am talking about taxes on income and not taxes as a whole. I am in favor for letting individuals choosing the tax burdens they bare.

            • That’s bullshit, by the by – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_history_of_the_United_States#Income_tax – and the point seems rather moot given that the expenses had simply been met by any number of more local taxes.

              More importantly, 20th-century society and its economics already were not those of the 19th century – to speak nothing of the 21st. They’re infinitely more complex and demanding to manage, and that unsurprisingly raises costs.

              “I am in favor for letting individuals choosing the tax burdens they bare.”
              …which would lead to nobody paying anything at all and the collapse of the society as we know it in rather short order. And then you’d be trying to negotiate with Lord Humungus or. if you’re really lucky, Don Corleone or a 19th-century robber baron over access to basic services and security.
              Odds are good you wouldn’t be getting a very good deal out of it.

      • At a state level Havoc we did it before 1913. They where not a direct taxation of our wages and Americans as a whole had a greater deal of control of their taxes. Each state would experiment with different policy and forms of taxation but best of all states are easier to account for than a federal government that has the unlimited power to tax you without consent.

        • Gratz, you just failed Adminstration 101. And I fail to see how the gigantic dysfunctional mess that is the US as the direct result of the lack of coordination and harmonization between state-level legislations is supposed to be some kind of positive example about *anything*.

  7. lelz i wonder which huge corporation is going to buy out WG. Because its mound of money producing another mounds

    • Would you sell a company that is making huge ammount of money? I wouldn’t so why would they sell it? (Unless you get like unlimited amount of money for it :D)

  8. Yes, you have summarized the article correctly. I cannot tell though if the successful bidder will have a majority stake in Hellinic back or not, my Greek only goes so.. far…

  9. Well its a smart move its not safe for them to have their money in Belarus since its a country ruled by dictatorship so they could lose everything there.

      • Sadly your knowlage is sad.

        I would like to know any example of of how “dictatorship” in Belarus can steal your money.

        • Lukashenko is a Dictator he can do anything he likes in the country such as seizing their assets for the state on claims of tax evasion for example. So better safe than sorry.

          • Clearly you missunderstand something. He can do that only with proof wich, unfortunetly, western media refuses to see btw countless times calling him dictator and regime in Belorusia.

            • Commit suicide, thousands of Belarusians already did, suicide rate is the only thing that shithole is good at lol. Stay poor.

            • dissapear who? your mind? who is imprisoned isint there wisout a reason, or if you think otherwise you are heavely uninformed.

            • Hey, idiot, I do know that the Belarus is a made up country, of which most citizens would like to return to the “glorious” USRR, or at least to bond closer with Russia. He is a dictator. Why? He represess oposition (arrests), as well as he is not democratically elected, as in the case of ALL of hs elections there were frauds, and if I recall correctly, he didin’t allow independent observors (a normal practice in civilized regions) to observe the elections.
              But you represent the mind of a tpical Belarusian, so I hope you are happy with your duce and your poverty.

        • Any state can steal your money, Usually they are doing it on a regular bases via taxes but no one ever knows.

            • es are used to pay something members use. They are not used to pay other members who refuse to pay their share.

              And nobody ever asked me if I want to be a member.

            • @jrt5: So move to another country then or something. Heard the one about “free lunches”? Well, living in an organised society *is* one such a “lunch”…

              More to the point, bro do you even history? The rulers have always and unfailingly imposed demands on their subjects, already to maintain their ability to rule. For most of history these have tended to be rather onerous.
              What we get today is a seriously good deal compared to what was the case in the old “Machtstaats” (as the PolSci jargon calls them) of but some two centuries ago. This is because the idea of the State has evolved away from the old model of the subject existing for the good of the polity and towards the polity existing for the good of the subject, or more properly, *citizen*.

    • Cyprus is not safe too like wg just learned thats why they want to be in full control of their money the next time this bananarepublik try to steal the money of russian “businessman”

  10. i swear i read the article until the end and ONLY after some time i understood “BANK”, all the time my brain was auto-correcting it to “TANK”.
    so the article read how WG was buying shares into one of the 3 major TANK companies, it made sense.
    so in the end i was.. huh… bank… fuck you brain!

  11. Ah, Cyprus. That haven of Russian oligarch money laundering. How delightfully sketchy.

  13. funny how a company that cant even get to work a language mutation of its own website earns so much– they could invest in a lot of things connected to the industry. instead they are buying shares in a bank

    .. and were still running a singlethreaded app. after how many years since wot was first released?

    • We evil western capitalist need the punish for having of the posession actual computers of the western decadence of the multi cores.
      make poor toaster of Ivan and mightyest microwave of Boris feel insecure comrade

    • So, how this is news? He may love mother Russia, but he ain’t going to pay taxes there. Belarus is the same thingy, ask an average Belarussian and he will tell you (in Russian probably) that he does not feel a Belarussian, but a “Soviet man”.

  16. As long as they keep the game runing with no lags, no nerfs and whatnot, I’m happy-ish. Still wont forget the marder 2 nerf. F you SerB!!!

  17. Another WG fail to be added at the list, they buy a bank and they talk about “company health and stability” but they don’t know that in few week war thunder add tank and most WG player change game?

  18. WG buying banks now
    nop, nothing fishy, move along …

    why don’t they buy a large tanker and move their entire assets in international waters

    • I just hope they don’t force you to buy gold using their bank. I rather not. I’d give up on the occasional purchases.

      • Welcone to warbanking, and introducing the Wargaming gold savings account, with 2% interest rate…

  21. This company is a sham, run by Russian criminals.

    I will never spend ANOTHER DOLLAR on this nigger rigged pile of shit game, as any dollars I spend will be for their ‘blatant’ tax evasion, and Russian Mafia Money Laundering..

    SerB and their entire crew are piles of shit, and I can’t wait till WOWP fails, it’s a piece of shit.

    Fuck WOT, and their buggy unbalanced pile.

  22. SerB’s next step is to purchase the Russian Federation and rename it The Great Wargaming Empire

  23. Ok so Wargamming is buying a bank, thats new. So wargamming just wants to make sure that their mony get handelde reponsebel.
    But whay are so many surprised/choked about a multination company having mony in a tax heaven. becourse not evry major US or orther European do not do that, or gets a very good reason not to do so.

    • If WG have all their money in one bank in Cyprus then they are thicker than we imagined and they seem to have all their money in one country which when dealing with the amount of dosh they have is not the best move. I think we now know which bank most if not all their money is in. If this bank goes to the wall then their savings frozen in it will vanish and the Cyprus banking system will be totaly fucked bringing down other banks where they may have other wads of dosh stashed.

      So Victor will have to wait a while before he can fit the flight deck to his yacht.

  24. Well at least is better to buy a bank than to have assets to help a dictator stay in power..

    oh god, i just realized my money expended on wot has been partly used as radiant money to support a dictator!

  25. Hm, after the bail-out and cutting people savings I thought such a bank is not a save investment. Perhaps they have another plan. To buy the Cyprus later :)

  28. I don’t care what wargaming buys with the money they make… I just wish they would get better map designers, so maybe we could get maps that are actually well balanced for both teams and fun to play on. And get better coders for their game, even high end machines don’t run this game well. Not like they don’t have the money.

    They are still running this game like its on a cheap budget, and yet make all this money… now that’s a joke.

  29. Just to be clear on the matter: I absolutely approve WG doing this. Who’d want to pay taxes in socialist Europe or in Russia. Fuck them. Taxes in EU are not used effectively and I am glad WG is not feeding EU bureaucrats with millions.

    • lol, come to America and take a look at the condition of our roads, our public school buildings and while we spent trillions in the name of protecting citizens from imaginary or overblown threats if you get sick or get hit by a car that’s your tough luck.

      I understand you’re point they could be more efficient and I’m only pointing out they could be even more inept and corrupt. Pick any 3rd world country if you want an even better example.

    • Hey, SS, have you ever been to America? Look how the system “works” there… Sure, European Union is wasting shitload of money, but at least for example our bridges are safe, and not in a permanent threat of collapsing as it is in the glorious USA… Also, if I recall correctly few years ago (2007? 2008?) there were MASSIVE protests in the Czech Republic after the proposal of ending the free higher education or something like that, so how is it SS, that you are willing to have a cake, and eat it too?

      • Where did I say America is any better? Hell, it’s even worse as far as I know.

        As for “free” education – well, according to your argument, it is not possible to transfer any “free” (tax-paid) education system to privately-funded, because there will always be the argument of “you had it free and we won’t” – so?

      • Last “MASSIVE” protests in the Czech Republic were against communist party in 1989. We are very lazy nation when it comes to protesting.

        • Everything west of the Black Forest is lazy when it comes to protests. 1989 required to much energy, and after the Big Change failed to materialise into the wild dreams everyone had, energy for real civic involvement is hard to find.

  30. Here we go again, SS lies :( :( :(

    Damn it SS, it’s because of the weather!!! Cyprus is sunny and have a nice beaches and bitches…

    • It is conspiracy Theory. WG don’t buy banks. :D Nevermind, Cyprus is good place for tax evasion…

  31. Actually it was exactly 2 618 772€ comprehensive profit in 2012.
    The 6month profit may be a lot, but they also need to pay some expenses at the end. For example between 26/07/2011 to 31/12/2011 they had only 344 776€ to pay, whereas in 31/12/2012 (so for all the 2013 year) they have 38 050 350€ in Administration Expenses. But this year will be better anyway.
    If you’re interested in 2012 they sold 216 475 407€ of games-related content.

    More info for the different subsidiaries: name – country based – (Principal activities)
    WG Europe S.A.S – based in France – (Marketing & Customer Support)
    Game Stream Limited – Belarus – (Software Maintenance)
    WG Overseas Lim. – Malta – (Holding of Investment)
    WG Sea Pte Lim. – Singapore – (Publishing)
    WG World Limited – Cyprus – (Holding of Intellectual property)
    WG America Inc. – US – (Mkg & Customer Supp.)

    • It makes perfect business sense to expand vertically into their financing solution. WG is concerned about ensuring they have control over their solutions, and don’t like relying heavily on out-sourced services/resources the critical failure of which could cripple them–such as finance handling in this case (previous case: BigWorld).

      If you, personally, have issues with the existence of legal tax havens, please take the matter up with your national legislature, and representatives to international legal bodies. As a business, WG has an fiduciary duty (obligation) to operate in the best interest of its (private, IIRC) shareholders. That means seeking the best way to shield it’s cash and cash-flow from rapacious ex-Soviet tax auditors and capricious laws designed to make everyone guilty of something so long as you can look hard enough.

      • I didn’t say anything. I pretty fine with what WG try to do, as you said, expand vertically is fine.

  32. well,me i am greek and it say that they will give money for shares and they will do that because the company is to Cyprys and they pay a lot of money for taxes.

  34. Pingback: Wargaming buys a 30 percent share in a bank | For The Record