Over the last 2+ weeks, we have been travelling throughout the Ukraine to look at many interesting projects requiring financing. After the 2008/09 crash, many formerly "rich" people are now "poor" - they all lost money in the real-estate collapse.

Many of these individuals and organizations are now in need of foreign financing - either to finish their projects or to start new projects. But many of these people (oligarchs) are totally "business naive" - They think that just because their name is "Yuri Stankovich", or whatever, and which nobody outside of the country knows anyway, along with providing poor documentation in Russian they will find financing in the West and that is "normal.". Wrong. We continued to beat our head against the wall and tell these people that such a mindset will not work in today's environment. These projects all need professional legal due diligence and all documentation in English as a minimum to get started, especially if they want foreign financing.

Some of our clients have understood this new financing environment and are well positioned to proceed. Others, with "old thinking" continue searching in vain for financing in Russia or Ukraine - a waste of time. These projects need foreign capital.

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