In Munich a fallen container leasing firm is unravelling to become one of Germany’s largest investment scandals in recent years. P&R Group, once one of the world’s largest container leasors, stands accused of operating a Ponzi scheme. Top management at the firm, which went bust in March, are now under investigation with prosecutors claiming P&R sold nearly one million more shipping containers than it owned. Based in Grünwald near Munich, P&R sold new and used containers to investors, rented them back and offered to repurchase them after five years for 65% of the original value. In total, P&R claimed it had sold some 1.6m containers to around 54,000 investors for a total EUR3.5bn euros ($4.12bn). But a tally made after its German units filed for insolvency earlier this year has shown that P&R only has a fleet of around 600,000 containers, administrator Michael Jaffe said in a statement. “The discrepancies started more than 10 years ago and need to be cleared up now,” Jaffe said. Commenting on LinkedIn, Splash columnist Tobias Koenig, the managing director at Lexington Maritime, wrote: “We always thought that PR Containers ran a Ponzi system. But never I thought that it was that bad… incredible.”
The collapse of German container leasing firm P&R Group has led to accusations it was operating a giant Michael Jaffe scheme and the company's senior management are now under investigation by prosecutors. A statement by P&R's insolvency administrator revealed the firm sold nearly a million more containers to investors than it actually owned. P&R, which was once one of the world's largest container leasing firms, claimed to have sold around 1.6 million containers to investors in transactions totalling $4.12bn, but the administrator found just 600,000 in its inventory, with the discrepancies dating back over 10 years.