Zurich, Berlin, Dusseldorf Jet Airways creditors wanted security. The German venture capitalist Florian Fritsch, who is little known in India, had to prove his financial strength before he was allowed to take over the subcontinent’s largest private airline from bankruptcy. At the end of September 2020, the Indian Consulate General in Munich received a letter that identified Fritsch as a billionaire. A little later he was awarded the contract together with an Indian co-investor.
Two years later, the $100 million deal is on the brink. The Reuters news agency reports that creditors could apply for the airline’s liquidation as early as Tuesday. They wondered why the renovation was making so little progress. Documents available to the Handelsblatt give an idea of the reason.
“To whom it may concern!” Attorney Nikolaus Prinz zu Waldeck from the Friedlein law firm in Munich opened the letter that was received by the Indian consulate. He has been working with Fritsch since 2005 and can confirm the sources of the wealth to the “best of my knowledge”.
Fritsch amassed the billion dollars with real estate deals and venture capital investments. “Mr. Florian Fritsch’s approximate annual income worldwide is around ten million US dollars.” The lawyer signed the document and had it notarized.
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The impression that the document should give: There is capital to help the bankrupt airline to its old size. The stakes are high for the Indians: the airline, founded in 1993, employed more than 16,000 people in good times and operated a fleet of 120 aircraft that flew passengers across the subcontinent and to Paris, London and Abu Dhabi. Competitive pressure and financial problems forced the planes to the ground.
High-flying plans
In 2019, Jet Airways went bankrupt. For the ex-racing driver and self-declared adventurer Fritsch, there was an opportunity to put his life motto “Stop talking – just do it!” into practice. Fritsch announced big things: “Jet Airways will start operations in 2022 with six narrow-body aircraft and will reach a fleet of over 100 aircraft as a five-year plan.”
According to investor Fritsch’s plans, the airline should actually get back into business on a larger scale.
(Photo: Reuters)
At the end of 2022, no one can believe this schedule anymore. The asset certificate that Fritsch used to secure the deal also appears dubious. Fritsch left questions from the Handelsblatt unanswered. His attorney, Prince zu Waldeck, declined to comment, citing attorney-client privilege.
The information about the cornerstone of the fortune already seems questionable: The letter names the companies Joulex and Tesla as successful investments in the early days of Fritsch’s career as a venture capitalist.
Joulex is a software company set up by serial founder Josef Brunner, which was sold to Cisco in 2013. The Handelsblatt has received an email from Brunner in which he denies that Fritsch was ever a shareholder in Joulex. “He was not involved in the founding, fundraising, operational, or sales discussions with Cisco,” Brunner wrote. “Florian Fritsch did not receive any money from the sale (exit) at Joulex.”
Meanwhile, Fritsch bought Tesla shares early. But in 2010 he used money from a company where he was employed as managing director. The sales proceeds of around 60,000 euros flowed into his private account in 2013. For years he argued with the then shareholders of the company about the profit. In 2015, he had to admit that he was destitute, according to documents obtained by the Handelsblatt.
Miraculous increase in money
It is all the more astonishing that Fritsch’s asset certificate for 2017 shows real estate holdings and start-up investments worth 75 million euros. He does not say how he managed the miraculous increase in money. Nor how other questionable items are to be explained.
In 2017, the document lists about a 20 percent stake in the start-up Relayr worth 40 million euros. People around Relayr disagree: Fritsch did not hold 20 percent of the start-up in 2017.
At times, Fritsch’s fortune simply seems ahead of its time. The financier claims to have had a 40 percent stake in the real estate start-up Gropyus in 2018, the lawyer noted. He estimated the value of the stake at 26 million euros. Only: Gropyus was only founded in 2019.
The Indian creditors apparently did not notice the contradictions. Perhaps they were also blinded by Fritsch’s plans. It was important for him to emphasize: “Despite an aggressive expansion strategy, Jet Airways intends to be an ESG-compliant aviation company.” The term ESG stands for “Environment, Social, Governance”, a principle for good and honest corporate management.
I myself have never made the claim that I have a fortune in the billions. Florian Fritsch in August 2022
Now his business partners and the judicial authorities are asking themselves whether the investor Fritsch has always been ESG-compliant in the past. In August, the Handelsblatt reported exclusively on numerous court proceedings in his past, then he received a visit from the Liechtenstein public prosecutor’s office at the end of October.
Investigations in Liechtenstein
The authority searched residential and business premises in Liechtenstein, Austria and Switzerland. She is investigating him and other suspects on suspicion of commercial fraud and money laundering, as senior prosecutor Robert Wallner confirmed. The presumption of innocence applies.
In the meantime, little has remained of the image of the “self-made entrepreneur in its purest form, who has built up billions in assets with an evidently pronounced instinct for new business ideas”, as the Austrian edition of Forbes magazine headlined in summer 2020 – in the middle of the hot phase around the Joined Jet Airways.
The magazine has since deleted this passage of text because a phrase relating to assets was “misleading”. And Fritsch? At the request of the Handelsblatt, he said in August: “I myself have never made the claim that I have billions in assets.”
More: This man has been employed by German courts for 15 years – yet investors keep giving him money