Solway Investment Group

Solway Investment Group is a private equity company consisting of a few principal business groups, including industrial investments, mining and smelting, real estate development, non-ferrous metals, and the chemical industry. The company was founded in 2003 by Aleksandr Bronstein and is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland.

Solway Investment Group invests in industrial assets, relaunches producing assets, and develops greenfield projects. This includes operating mines and smelting plants in Guatemala, Ukraine, Macedonia, and Indonesia, with a specific focus on nickel production, while having a portfolio of mining and metals projects in various stages of development. At the end of December 2021, Solway Investment Group's total assets were valued at USD$1.45 billion.

Solway Investment Group is a holding company with a diverse portfolio of non-core businesses that includes financial, real estate, and private equity investments, many of which are committed to by Solway because these portfolio companies are considered growth-oriented businesses that can continue to grow and offer returns to Solway with the holding company's financial resources. Many of Solway's projects are held by the company as subsidiaries, alongside many of the group's other subsidiary organizations.

Subsidiaries listed by Solway Investment Group include Solway Trading AG, Bucim DOO Radovish, Minera San Jorge S.A., ‌Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel, and Compañía Guatemalteca de Níquel de Izabal S.A. Some have claimed that the group has more than the subsidiaries it lists, with up to as many twenty-three companies identified; these have been refuted as being connected to Solway Investment Group by Solway when asked. As noted above, many of the projects and plants owned and operated by Solway Investment Group are held as distinct entities and subsidiary organizations. These include the following:

This project site, abbreviated to PFP, is a production site of ferronickel. It was originally established in 1972 as a Soviet state enterprise. The site was idle prior to its acquisition by Solway Investment Group in 2003, and since that time, Solway has modernized the facility and resumed production with a single commodity focus on ferronickel. The nickel ores are imported from Indonesia, New Caledonia, and Solway's Guatemala project.

The modernization efforts at the site included improving the plant's furnaces, installing waste heat recovery systems to save energy, upgrading to gas cleaning and dust removal systems, and reconstructing the third stage of the gas treatment facilities. The Solway Investment Group also worked (according to the company) to improve the quality of life of neighboring Ukrainian towns. In 2022, with the beginning of the Russian-Ukraine conflict, the project had to half operations when its energy supply system was affected by damages to the local power grid.

The Fenix Project is a ferronickel production facility in Guatemala originally developed in 1960 and acquired from HudBay Minerals in 2011 by Solway Investment Group. The project includes mining rights to 36.2 million tons of nickel ore reserves, while Solway worked to expand the project with the construction of a high-pressure acid leach to treat low-grade laterite reserves with nickel below cut-off grades. Other developments have included using a smart predictive line controller to expand on the 1,000 metric tons of nickel produced each month and adjustments to the power limits and power generation to increase the energy stability of the facility and increase its energy efficiency.

The Bucim mine was originally constructed in 1976 and officially launched in 1979. After going bankrupt in 2000, Solway acquired the Bucim mine in 2005 and worked to repair and replace the mining fleet while upgrading the flotation circuit. The open pit mine produces flotation concrete containing copper and gold and is capable of processing over 4.5 million tons of ore annually. This includes producing copper concentrate without significant impurities sold to smelters around Europe.

The plant also includes a solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) plant, installed by Solway in 2011, to process the oxidized part of the deposit and to extract residual copper from waste stockpiles. Other investments made by Solway include investments into the surrounding areas and their communities, such as local athletic, cultural, and educational facilities.

Solway Investment Group is also developing the Borov Dol mine to extend the Bucim operation until at least 2030. The Borov Dol is expected to produce 4.5 million tonnes of copper ore annually and is expected to replace the Bucim mine with a more modern mining facility intended to preserve the employees in Bucim's operations and reduce the environmental impact of the Bucim mine.

The Aquila Project is a greenfield nickel and cobalt project intended to include the construction of a nickel production facility in Indonesia. Solway Investment Group acquired the exploration license in 2007, completed a feasibility study in 2014, and in 2017 obtained the necessary permits required to proceed to the next stage of the project. This stage includes facilities for the extraction of nickel and cobalt ore, integrated downstream facilities, processing technologies, and the construction of a ferronickel smelting and hydrometallurgical processing facility. The project's ultimate goal is to export value-added nickel and cobalt products.

Part of the Aquila Project includes various operations, including the exporting of nickel ore from the Asera deposit from the coast of Sulawesi Island, Indonesia; the Bahoomahi deposit in the mountainous region of Sulawesi Island, which has the potential for additional 13 million metric tons of nickel ore; and the Sorowalio deposit located on Buton Island, where Solway mines nickel ore. Solway began operations at various parts of these locations, developing the necessary infrastructure before receiving all necessary licenses to export ore from these locations.

Solway Investment Group acquired the porphyry copper and gold project in Mendoza. The San Jorge mine includes a mid-sized deposit with an estimated total of 194 million tons of ore containing 900,000 tons of contained copper and 1.03 million ounces of gold. The development of the project is straightforward and includes low capital requirements and operating costs. And San Jorge is a PFS stage flotation copper project with a proposed open pit mine with enriched and primary sulphide ore, which offers, according to Solway, opportunities to expand the size of the existing deposit through further deep and step-out drilling.

Solway Investment Group has faced criticism for actions reportedly to have taken place in some of its Guatemala projects. Specifically, these reports alleged that Solway subsidiaries Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN) and Pronico had covered up pollution in Guatemala. The investigation included sixty-five journalists from fifteen countries, including reporters from Spain's El Pais and France's Le Monde, and alleged that the Solway subsidiaries had used various strategies—including colluding with authorities, intimidating locals and indigenous communities, and influencing peddling (or, more directly, allegedly bribing Guatemalan authorities, including the Guatemalan president)—to hide any responsibility the group may have had in the pollution. According to the investigation, one of the cases was the appearance of a large red slick in Lake Izabal, which both Solway and local authorities blamed on algae.

Solway Investment Group, in response to this reporting, filed a defamation lawsuit against France's Le Monde newspaper, while denying the substance of the reporting, the allegations in the reporting, and any involvement in some of the crimes— including the illegal jailing of reporters—that occurred in the region. However, in response to this reporting, the United States Treasury Department issued sanctions on Solway Investment Group, in part for what it it called a bribery and corruption scheme with Russian involvement in the Guatemalan nickel sector.

Through the Department of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the US sanctioned Russian national, Dmitry Kudryakov, and one Belarusian national, Iryna Litviniuk, for their role in or association with corruption schemes in the Guatemalan mining sector. The sanctions were also against Compania Guatemalteca de Niquel (CGN) and Compania Procesadora de Niquel (Pronico), and Mayaniquel, which function as subsidiaries of the Solway Investment Group, for association with the above individuals, whom OFAC claimed were executives of Solway.

Solway Investment Group denied the reports that linked the Solway group, noting that the group is located in Switzerland, does not have Russian roots, and has no executives, managers, or owners that are Russian citizens or residents; rather, the company is wholly owned and managed by EU citizens. Further, the company claimed they have no relations with the Kremlin in Moscow and legally ceased all operations and investments in Russia when the Russian-Ukraine conflict began. Solway noted both above-sanctioned individuals had previously worked at the CGN and Pronico subsidiaries respectively, and in response to the OFAC sanctions the individuals had been suspended from their positions pending an investigation by outside legal counsel.

Further, Solway announced that the group was undertaking a board-led investigation into the conduct of its subsidiaries CGN and Pronico, and its affiliates, agents, management, and associated persons. This was to clarify its response to the allegations against Solway from the investigative reporting. Part of this investigation includes the retention of United States law firms Seiden Law Group LLP, Quinn Emanual Urqhart & Sullivan, and Berliner, Corcoran & Rowe to conduct the investigation and to understand how the allegations against the company's subsidiaries led to the OFAC sanctions. The investigation is also intended to communicate with OFAC to minimize the potential consequences of the sanctions and understand how to remediate their position into compliance with the government laws that govern their business.

Solway emphasized in these releases that the parent company, Solway Investment Group, was not subject to the OFAC sanctions and was working with their subsidiaries CGN and Pronico and the outside legal counsel to remove the sanctions from those subsidiaries. Further, Solway Investment Group clarified that the sanctioned company, Mayaniquel, is not and never has been a part of the group.