Invest Capital Investment Bank to be acquired by a Russian-run, Dubai-based cloud-seeding company

One. An almost unknown Dubai-based trading company headed by a Russian CEO with no trace on the internet is proposing to buy out an investment bank in Pakistan, so it can have a foothold on the PSX, and will also introduce a separate over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives product that monetises water. 

Two. It plans on introducing technology that creates rain in Pakistan. As in, rain from clouds. 

Three. It already created a feasibility plan to ‘create’ rain in Balochistan in 2018, and the provincial government of Balochistan was enthusiastically willing to pay $45 million of taxpayer money for the cause.

If you had to read this chain of events twice, and perhaps still do not understand what is going on, you are not alone; indeed Profit is confused if this entire chain of events is even legitimate. 

And yet, clear as day, there is some measure of proof. On December 18, the Invest Capital Investment Bank issued a notice to the PSX detailing that a trading company based in Dubai, Climate Global Control Trading wants to acquire a majority stake, or 55.62%, of the bank. The purchase price is still in negotiation. 

Typically, Profit likes to examine both parties in a mergers and acquisition update, but in this case, using our litmus test of “does your company play God?”, we are going to go ahead and throw the investment bank out of the picture. It is an investment bank. You get the idea.

Instead, let us begin with Climate Global Control Trading. According to the company’s website, the company is a supplier of ‘integrated technology solutions’, which includes its patented ‘Ionospheric Technology for Weather Management’. It has deployed its technology in the UAE, Iran, and India, among others. The company says it has a science and research sector it developed in the last 30 years (elsewhere, in the same document, it says the last 50 years), mostly from around 400 professionals and experts from Russia. 

Now, about that rain bit. We will preface this by saying that ‘cloud seeding’ is an actual phenomenon. This is when clouds are modified by dispersing particles in the air, like silver iodide, or really any compound that freezing water vapor easily attaches to. This process creates condensation, or when water transitions from vapor to liquid, hence, causing rain. Cloud seeding has been actively used in all parts of the world, and in recent years has picked up pace in rich, but parched, countries in the Gulf. Dubai even had floods on its hands when its cloud seeding experiment in 2020 was just a tad too enthusiastic. 

But Climate Global Control Trading does not do cloud seeding. A consultant for the company told Profit that the cloud seeding is not really natural; instead, the Ionospheric Technology uses electromagnetic waves with different frequencies to create a ‘force field’, or an atmospheric wall with modified parameters. These atmospheric tunnels apparently cause rain.

(By the way, about this consultant: we got their contact information from the acquisition target, which told us that it was the contact number for the company secretary of the potential acquirer. The person who picked up the phone refused to give their real name, denied that they were the company secretary, and said that instead they were a consultant for the company. The only information they gave was that which was available on the company website.)

There is not much else to go by how electromagnetic waves cause rain, or even how the electromagnetic waves are created. Here are two further nuggets of information from the company:  “This technology does not exist anywhere in the world, any minute changes in the energy field of the earth can be detected, tracked and corrected,” and, “The energy equivalent of this planned action may be tens of megatons, only distributed in time and space. And it may be comparable to the solar energy flowing into the territory (5 to 30%).” According to the consultant, the company can yield 33mm of rain in 1 square kilometre. 

Thus, according to the company, a typical transaction looks something like this. A client can ‘choose’ a weather regime and area for a certain period of time, with a minimum of one year. The results of the technology are visible within two to three months. Then (and here is where we get a little dystopian) an actual change of weather conditions on the said territory will occur within five to seven years. 

The company claims that it has already tried this out in Iran in 2014, where it said it had poured rain onto 20% of Iran’s entire territory. The company also claimed that it managed to divert an entire cyclone away from India to the UAE between 15 to 30 June, 2019. Outside of this company, there is no research to suggest that such technology is possible. 

A little closer to home, the provincial government of Balochistan decided to enter into an agreement with Climate Global Control Trading in 2018 to essentially generate localized flooding for four dams in districts Gwadar and Kech: Akra Kaur Dam, Sawar Kaur Dam, Shadi Kaur Dam and Mirani Dam. 

The trial precipitation phase was to last 45 days, with the precipitation volume around 38mm to 43mm. If it was successful, the government of Balochistan was to pay $3.15 million. The second, year-long project, for precipitation of 180-300 mm in an area of 10,000 sq km was also written in. If successful, the project was to cost $45 million, though the agreement did contain a clause that said if the experiment was a failure, the payment would not be made. 

Perhaps the best reaction to the company’s electromagnetic scheme was inadvertently given in the technical report by Dr Qamar uz Zaman Chaudhry, the International Climate Change Specialist for UNEP, and a former director general for the Pak Meteorological Department.

“They tried to explain their technology, which they call ‘Ionosphere Climate Technology’, through which they plan to control atmospheric processes to develop clouds from the ocean and moved to an identified region for initiating artificial rain for filling empty dams in Balochistan. On my probing questions they tried to answer to a particular extent, and refused to give further insight being a trade technology secret. Maybe rightly they wanted to protect their newly developed artificial rain technology,” he said. 

The Balochistan agreement also contains the only picture we have of the company’s CEO, Maxim Lavrov, who seems to exist nowhere else on the internet, Russian or otherwise. 

Interestingly, the company has also introduced a new financial instrument for the OTC market, known as Climate Cron. This is equivalent to 1 sq km of the company’s service, or 33mm of rain. According to the consultant, buying the investment bank in Pakistan is simply a vessel through which to enter Pakistan (and also, conveniently own an investment bank). The company is meeting with all four provincial chief ministers to pitch the idea of the Climate Cron, and apparently 500,000 Climate Cron have been set aside for Pakistan, should they avail the opportunity. The entire negotiation and SECP regulatory process, according to the consultant, should be wrapped up in less than a month. 

So to recap: Pakistan may be buying Climate Crons, having rain manufactured through unexplained electromagnetic waves, and our provincial governments will apparently be on board for this. Stranger things have happened in the year 2020.