And what about the fact that danger came
That there was drought, misery and famine,
It still shines in a thousand songs
That crazy Cavaliers year.
(Valdis Grēviņš. Cavalier song)
Essay author: Gesta Berling
Already in 2021, Māris Simanovičs had received a clear task from his curators: “Get ready, at the end of May 2023, you will probably have a big task that will require good recognition and an excellent reputation.” In order to perform the specific task, it was necessary to create an excellent public image of Simanović, which was entrusted to the public relations agency Deep White.
As if the task was not one of the most difficult – Maris was instructed to slow down his bragging on social networks, while carefully and gradually creating the image of an extremely successful businessman, who is just so young that he cannot be accused of a Chekist past, but just so (40 years old) old , to be able to apply for the big task. Speaking at various managers’ conferences, activity at LRTK, interviews in business publications and even joining the National Guard created the necessary positive background. It must be admitted that the Eco Baltia concern under the leadership of its new majority shareholders had made several successful investments, and since Simanovič was the manager and shareholder of this company, the successes of Eco Baltia in the last few years could be “conveniently attached” to him personally in the public space.
The highlight of the celebration of Simanovic’s entrepreneurial talents was a Forbes cover paid for by Deep White and a complementary interview in the magazine
The fact that the brilliant businessman got his wealth by actually robbing his former partners, and as part of this process organized an absurd criminal case to defame Viestura Tamuži , the wider public had already forgotten. In the field of public relations, the law works ironically that readers are only interested in current issues, and not in events that supposedly happened, but maybe didn’t happen a few years ago.
Thus, PR consultants could hardly worry about this unpleasant episode, nor about the events of the even more distant past, which could undeniably disturb the image of the wise and honest businessman if they were brought up again. However, creating the image of a great businessman alone was not enough to push Simanović into the limelight. In fact, for the entire thirty years of independence, the image of any businessman in the public space of Latvia was created either as strongly negative or simply doubtful, using the following and similar arguments: “how could someone have earned millions with honest means?”
Something else was needed,
And here, quite unexpectedly, at the end of February 2022, events began, which for the majority of Latvian residents were associated with such feelings as fear and danger, but which created unexpected opportunities for PR professionals. It should be explained that every major or minor social upheaval, whether from the point of view of PR technologists, it would have arisen naturally (for example, an act of terrorism or the Covid-19 pandemic) or created on purpose (for example, movements to save the planet or black rights), is a good reason, with with the help of which specific people and events are highlighted. Everything is just so cynical – while life flows peacefully, it is difficult to move the wider public to change their opinions, while during revolutionary events, both positive and negative images are formed and created almost effortlessly. The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a great event for real PR professionals, – although until now there were armed conflicts here and there in the world, now the war had come to the borders of our country. Did every resident of Latvia worry about the situations that will happen if “Kiev is captured in three days” – we will be next, therefore, everyone was emotionally involved in the events of Ukraine, and there were no indifferent ones.
Fortunately, Kiev was not captured, the immediate horrors of the war no longer occupied the minds of Latvian residents every day, and we all began to think about how we could help the Ukrainian fighters. Various aid movements were formed spontaneously, both for Ukrainian refugees and fighters at the front. The majority of people simply wanted to help the people tormented by the war, and among them there were quite a few real and true heroes, some of them became more widely known, such as Reinis Pozņaks and Đirts Slaviņš, but many, many people were those who donated their time, money and even private space, helping Ukrainian refugees or fighters at the front.
This was the relatively rare case when a truth was accepted in society with practically 100% certainty – it was clear to all of us that Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim, all those who help Ukraine are good characters, and vice versa.
As early as March 2022, it was clear to the professionals of Deep White that the generally bright image of Mara Simanovičas, a successful entrepreneur, would shine completely bright and white if it was connected with assistance to Ukraine. Of course, this assistance should have been public, sufficiently large and significant, such that it could both attract attention and sustain it for a long period of time, at least until May 2023. In order to achieve such recognition, a given entrepreneur must either fully dedicate himself to a project (as happened, for example, with the Ukrainian aid convoys or the Borscht project) or create a wider movement involving several positive characters and operating somewhat autonomously .
Deep White professionals were inclined in favor of the second solution, since Simanovic had neither the time nor the desire to devote himself to the creation of an individual campaign, in addition, he also had work duties at Eco Baltia. This is how the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” movement was born – it was created by the Deep White agency and was largely created to polish Simanovic’s image. It should be explained here that social movements do not arise by themselves – there are always very specific people who come up with the concept, form of activity, organize administrative work, and the like, and “Entrepreneurs for Peace” was a joint project of Deep White and Mārs Simanović.
In order to be able to talk about Simanović’s charity loudly enough, the donated sums of money should be significant – at least five zeroes. Neither Simanovičs himself nor his curators were going to donate such sums of money from their own funds, it was also impossible to persuade the shareholders of the company Eco Baltia led by Simanovičs – the Lithuanian investment fund Invalda and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – to take such a step. However, the shareholders of Eco Baltia were persuaded to donate significant sums of money in the event that they would receive tax credits in the amount of the donated amount – technically, this would mean that they would not pay the company’s income tax to the State Treasury, but would be credited to the account of an organization that has the status of a social benefit.
The actual result of such tax optimization is that the money is donated not by the company, but the state budget in the form of unreceived income tax, on the other hand, the company gets all the credit for the alleged donation. Eco Baltia intended to implement another scheme in 2022 – publicly talking about the need to make further investments, the company issued bonds and attracted eight million euros from the financial markets , but actually paid these eight million as dividends to its shareholders: the Invalda Foundation, EBRD and Simanovič . In order to pay eight million in dividends, the subsidiary companies of the Eco Baltia concern: AS PET Baltia, SIA Eco Baltia vide, AS Latvijas zaļais punkts and SIA Nordic plast had to pay two million in corporate income tax to the State Treasury. As a result, these companies paid only one million eight hundred thousand to the State Treasury, but transferred two hundred thousand as a “donation”.
Therefore, immediately after the formulation of the idea, Simanovič appeared in the corridors of the Ministry of Finance with an insistent desire to receive the status of social benefit for his intended formation, however, he did not succeed as well as he had planned. The Ministry of Finance does grant social benefit status to organizations that have proven that they work for the benefit of society, but this time Simanovic tried to get the benefits of tax breaks for an organization that not only had not proven itself, but was not even formally established. Either the reason was this formal discrepancy, or the fact that there was another person working in a high position in the Ministry of Finance, who was dragged into the criminal proceedings by Simanović’s actions, but this time he had to leave empty-handed, that is, without a tax discount for the emerging entity. At the beginning of 2022, without receiving a welcome from the Ministry of Finance, Simanovic and his advisers from Deep White had to solve a problem – if the organization “Entrepreneurs for Peace” were formally established, it might not receive the coveted tax discount status at all, and the companies of the Eco Baltia concern would not be able to credit its account with the funds necessary to polish Simanovic’s fame. Such a situation, in turn, would discredit and actually destroy the whole good idea of the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” project, that is, the company would be established, but no money would flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all – if the organization “Entrepreneurs for Peace” were to be formally established, it might not receive the desired tax discount status at all, and the companies of the Eco Baltia concern would not be able to credit its account with the funds necessary to polish Simanovič’s fame. Such a situation, in turn, would discredit and actually destroy the whole good idea of the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” project, that is, the company would be established, but no money would flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all – if the organization “Entrepreneurs for Peace” were to be formally established, it might not receive the desired tax discount status at all, and the companies of the Eco Baltia concern would not be able to credit its account with the funds necessary to polish Simanovič’s fame. Such a situation, in turn, would discredit and actually destroy the whole good idea of the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” project, that is, the company would be established, but no money would flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all and companies of the Eco Baltia concern would not be able to credit its account with the funds necessary to polish Simanović’s fame. Such a situation, in turn, would discredit and actually destroy the whole good idea of the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” project, that is, the company would be established, but no money would flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time.
As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all and companies of the Eco Baltia concern would not be able to credit its account with the funds necessary to polish Simanović’s fame. Such a situation, in turn, would discredit and actually destroy the whole good idea of the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” project, that is, the company would be established, but no money would flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all but money would not flow into it. It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all but money would not flow into it.
It must be admitted that when solving this problem, Simanovič once again demonstrated excellent planning skills, that is, he both founded and did not found the intended movement at the same time. As it can be seen from the data of the Enterprise Register, such an organization as “Entrepreneurs for Peace” has not been established and registered at all , and instead of formal activities (registration in the Register of Companies, opening a bank account), the project leaders made a living with pure PR activities – advertising in social networks, press, television and creating a website .
But how did Simanovic and Deep White solve the formal issues, after all, how could they attract donations? If you look at the penultimate paragraph of the slogan “Entrepreneurs for Peace”, you can see an invitation to transfer the donations to the account of the organization Riga TechGirls6. I wonder what this organization is and why should the money be credited to its account? It seems that none of the many bona fide donors even thought of such a question, and the company Riga TechGirls, which until then was engaged in programming training for women and whose annual turnover had never exceeded one hundred thousand euros, was flooded with donations in the amount of two million three hundred thousand in 2022 .
The founder of the company, Anna Anderson, was Simanovič’s fellow student, whom he had apparently convinced to get involved in this project, but the relationship between the fellow students was not the most important aspect that had interested Mari. The association Riga TechGirls, with its many years of selfless activity, had earned a quite justified response from the Ministry of Finance, and it had an active social benefit status, which could be used by Simanovič and donors like him. Thus, the formal situation in the spring of 2022 was as follows: the “Entrepreneurs for Peace” movement formally did not exist, there was only a group picture of some entrepreneurs and a website, but there were no company statutes, management, or bank accounts.
Be that as it may, the companies in the Eco Baltia concern transferred part of the taxes that they had to include in the budget as dividends to the association Riga TecGirls . This part was quite significant – two hundred thousand euros, thus making the Eco Baltia concern the largest donor of “Entrepreneurs for Peace” and, accordingly, Māri Simanović an unequivocally bright image. Well, this excellent performance only had to be strengthened by prompting the Chapter of the Order to award the relevant award, and voila – we have a new Knight of the Order of the Three Stars with an excellent reputation, who very likely hopes to exchange his fifth degree award for the Order of the Highest Star in the near future. The entire cost of the donation scheme, or the real amount that Eco Baltia took away from itself, is thirty thousand euros – about the same as the cost of Simanović’s advertisement on the cover of Forbes.
A small disclaimer at the end of the article – please do not be offended by all those donors who contributed their funds to the funds of this organization guided by true motives. Both the author of this article and the society as a whole find these efforts extremely noble, however, the organizer of the donation movement, Māris Simanovićs, is the kind of person who does not miss his benefit even in small things, as it is vividly described in this analysis . It is hoped that most of the donated funds really went to Ukraine and were used to strengthen its defense, although it is not really clear to whom and in what way to demand responsibility for the events with the donations, if in case they were not so good intentions. Here, for example – as if there is no reason to blame the donor – the quick loan operator MINTOS, however, it seems very strange that while other donors have each transferred larger or smaller, but usually round amounts, MINTOS Riga TechGirls has credited 24 (!) different amounts to the account at different times, all completely different, all not expressed in round euros, but such as: 171.52; 611.46; 564.89; 372.36; etc.8 It is possible that everything is in the best order, but it is also possible that some tax scheme is implemented here, but there is not really any,