[Trayton withdraws]...loan application

Berlingske Tidende Denmark/April 28, 2000
By Christian Jensen and Michael Bjerre

...[A] business conglomerate in China withdraws [its] application for government loan.

[A] fund under [the] Ministry of development admits mistake and tightens procedures. The Investment fund IFU controlled by the Ministry of Development admits that the investigations it carried out in connection with the approval of a million-DKK loan to a...furniture factory in Shanghai were unsatisfactory. This is why the fund decided yesterday that it is going to tighten up its approval [procedures] when it comes to selecting new Danish businesses as partners.

This has happened after Berlingske Tidende, through a series of articles has revealed that the IFU board had approved a loan amounting to millions of crowns to a business conglomerate, without knowing that the conglomerate [had ties to]...Tvind's economic elite [and]...a tax shelter on Britain's Isle of Man.

Under pressure from Minister of Development Jan Trøjborg, the board decided to temporarily pause the loan process so that the case could be fully investigated. The IFU [then] posed a number of questions regarding The Trayton Group's bookkeeping and ownership to the president of the Trayton Group, 33 year-old Tomas Lichtenberg.

Lichtenberg, however, chose not to answer the questions, instead he faxed a letter to the IFU in which he announced that the company was withdrawing its application for the government loan.

It was only yesterday that IFU chairman, Sven Riskær announced to the board that Trayton had withdrawn its loan application. He says: "One could say that we haven't done our jobs well enough..."

Note: This article has been edited by the Ross Institute of New Jersey. Editing is denoted by brackets or three dots to denote a excised portion.