DD Support Board and Research Team

[1manband]

Timur Turlov, the founder and CEO of Freedom, posted a rebuttal on LinkedIn this morning of Hindenburg's article and short-selling of his company. IMO, it is VERY weak, and raises more questions than it answers.

"Another Hindenburg Research report has been released, this time it was dedicated to Freedom. I will not hide that it is very unpleasant when they throw mud at you, referring to anonymous sources, but I realize that this is the price that you have to pay for publicity. And the more valuable the support I receive.

I tried to answer all the accusations as honestly and openly as possible. We don't want to sweep anything under a table and say it's all nonsense. We work in one of the most high-risk regions of the world, in order to keep our business, we specifically try to work with the best employees, auditors, law firms, compliance consultants. Conscious trust based on facts is important to us.

Review of all these facts can be found here:
https://lnkd.in/d-uu_Puu

Refer to sec.gov for a separate opinion of our independent auditor. We delayed the report for more than two months for a reason, since everyone approached verification of the facts in preparing the report very carefully, the pressure was very high from all sides.

I'll try to go through the key facts briefly here for those who don't want to read the full text.

1. We closed a sale of assets in the Russian Federation on February 10. Neither I nor the shareholders of the Holding control it. The anonymous person on whose allegations the report is based, like the entire campaign around it, is our offended former employee who has worked for less than a year and understands the processes very superficially.

2. Indeed, I was included in the sanctions list by the Ukrainian authorities, like many leaders of the financial organizations that were operating in the Russian Federation at the time. We consider imposition of the sanctions a mechanical mistake, and we are working to resolve the situation.

3. Yes, we have tried to transfer some of our clients from Russia and Ukraine to Kazakhstan. We have the best compliance in the region. Work with clients that fell under sanctions was terminated in accordance with OFAC licenses. Any major financial institution faces such clients. They are in all major Western banks. The question is how do you work it out.

4. Our asset in Belize has the same sanctions compliance as in the entire Holding. We mention about this in our reporting, and the actual operation of these controls was also the subject of multiple audits.

5. As for the "drawn income" - we have fully tested all clients and receipt of all reflected income. What was reflected in the FST Belize report for 2020 as a receivable was, in fact, account balances with the upper broker, Freedom Europe.

6. The accusations of manipulating their shares are also unfounded. The majority of FRHC's clients are our shareholders. This is the reason for such a high level of concentration of trading in our shares from brokers serving our firm. In fact, they simply serve the transactions of our clients.

7. It is absurd to accuse us of buying securities of the NBRK's subsidiary. Due to the guarantees of the NBRK, KFU bonds are highly reliable and equated to the status of government securities. Inflation in Kazakhstan is rapidly slowing down, everyone is waiting for a key rate cut. The portfolio that FRHC now owns will deliver big returns.

In general, the investigators, in fact, did not discover anything new. Therefore, we do not see any panic among our clients.