In Luxembourg, PrimeEnergy Capital was selling sunshine. Yet this public limited company, based on Boulevard Royal, had neither a power station nor a single solar panel to its name: just €11m in bonds owed to investors and no equity since 2019. The condensed balance sheets paint a clear picture. The company lost money in almost every financial year: its equity fell below half of its share capital as early as 2017, turned negative in 2019 and plummeted to −€1.27m by the end of 2022. At the same time, its long-term debt – the bulk of which consists of its outstanding bonds – surged from around €2.5m in 2017 to over €11m by 2019, peaking at €11.27m by the end of 2022.
For the assets bear no resemblance whatsoever to those of an electricity generator. The bulk consists of financial fixed assets frozen at €3.5m, which remained unchanged from 2018 to 2023 and were never written down despite the group’s collapse, and in receivables due in more than one year, reaching as much as €7.25m in 2021. The money raised through bonds did not finance power stations: it left the company in the form of loans and equity investments. The condensed balance sheets show the form this took, but not the beneficiaries.
The promise, however, was crystal clear. PrimeEnergy Capital’s brochure claimed that the capital would be “invested exclusively in viable new solar photovoltaic power station projects”, and the bond issues bore the name of the Solarlux programme. “The bonds were called Solarlux, which says it all,” acknowledged former director Khalid Belgmimi during his hearing on 9 June before the Geneva public prosecutor’s office, admitting that “the strategy then changed” and that the funds had been “lent to Bargella”.
Funds transferred to the personal holding company
Bargella Invest is the main shareholder’s holding company, based in Switzerland. Until 1st January 2020, PrimeEnergy Capital was not, in fact, a subsidiary of the group, but a private company owned by Laurin Fäh and this holding company, who together held the entire share capital. However, it was Bargella that the money was flowing to: of the €9.6m raised in Luxembourg, nearly six were ultimately lent to the shareholder’s holding company. Before the investigating judges, the three accused explained that, as they were unable to invest directly in solar power infrastructure to achieve their 100kW target, they had initially invested in property as a temporary measure, whilst waiting for an opportunity to arise in the solar sector.
The company’s public accounts show a clear trend – long-term receivables are increasing year on year. The company’s Luxembourg-based director resigned in June 2020, sending a scathing letter criticising the management of the company, which he did not endorse. According to the court documents, he denounced in writing transfers carried out “without his knowledge” and demanded an explanation of how the funds had been allocated. He never managed to obtain any answers.
Appearing before the Geneva public prosecutors, Laurin Fäh admitted to these transactions. When asked who had decided to transfer the funds from the Luxembourg company to his holding company, he replied during his hearing on 9 June: “I was the one who gave the instructions.” He regards this as a routine transaction: “It is perfectly normal in the life of a company to lend to the main shareholder,” he stated, assuring that everything had been done “in accordance with the proper procedures”.
Mr Fäh, his sister – the group’s former chairwoman – and the former director, all three of whom are currently in custody in Geneva and presumed innocent, deny any wrongdoing. Already suspected of dishonest management and breach of trust, they now face the prospect of being prosecuted for fraud. It was this Luxembourg-based vehicle, and its loans to the shareholder, that led the investigation to shift towards this more serious charge.
Around a hundred claimants in Luxembourg
On 23 May 2025, the Luxembourg District Court declared PrimeEnergy Capital bankrupt following the company’s own petition. Contrary to what has sometimes been reported in the French-speaking Swiss press, this is not a “branch”, but a fully-fledged public limited company. This is only one aspect of the case: the Luxembourg-based company also held shares in a property company and a civil partnership specialising in the sale of luxury cars.
How did these “private” bonds end up in the hands of investors, most of whom had never left Switzerland? Through a network of advisers. During Finma’s first investigation into the parent company in 2015, financial advisers who had been dismissed in Switzerland were rehired to resell the same securities on behalf of the Luxembourg entity – even though the accounts on file show no salary payments. According to the Geneva investigation, it was Bargella, the shareholder’s holding company, that paid their salaries. More than 85 complainants resident in Switzerland currently hold PrimeEnergy Capital bonds; around fifteen hold only these, and none claim to have visited Luxembourg.
The issue was carried out outside the scope of a public offering subject to CSSF approval, under one of the exemptions from the Prospectus regime – for sophisticated investors, a restricted circle, and minimum investment amounts of at least €100,000. There is nothing irregular about this in itself: it is the mechanism that allows securities to be placed with savers without the safety net of full regulatory oversight. The prospectus, however, was presented as a “private bond, without calling on the public” – whilst the brochure itself touted a subscription “from €10,000”. According to our calculations, the promoters of this project issued eight private bonds, two of which were in euros – despite the project’s aim of avoiding foreign exchange issues – and these should have enabled them to raise up to €55m between 2015 and 2019. Only one of these bonds, Solarlux E – a €5m bond at 4.75% – has not yet matured.
Recovery estimated at between 20% and 45% of the total
The scandal, however, is primarily a Swiss one. Having operated at a loss almost continuously, PrimeEnergy raised more than CHF120m from around a thousand savers, offering returns of between 2.85% and 5.125%. In the parent company’s 2022 accounts, the auditor PwC described the loan to the shareholder – CHF19.5m – as a “prohibited return of capital within the meaning of Article 680(2) of the Swiss Code of Obligations”. The Swiss victims’ association regrets that PwC did not go so far as to refuse to sign off on the accounts.
As for Bertrand Piccard – an ambassador paid €8,600 for his image, according to RTS –, he claims to have known nothing about it: “I had no information about these investments, as I was in no way part of the company’s management.” He is due to be interviewed on 8 October 2026 by Geneva prosecutors, as a person called upon to provide information, not as a suspect. When contacted by Paperjam, the entrepreneur did not respond to our questions.
On the Swiss side, the liquidator expects to recover between 25 and 45% of the investment – a projection. The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Cédric Berger, considers the range to be “relatively favourable”; the chairman of the association representing those affected by PrimeEnergy Cleantech, Jérôme Fontana, fears “losses of up to 80%”. Most of the money was lost in Switzerland. But the clearest warning sign came from Luxembourg, as recorded in the register each year: a company with no equity, which owed €11m to investors, and which was lending their money to its shareholder.
The sun is beating down in Luxembourg this Thursday 18 June. But there are no solar panels to allow anyone to harness this energy… to cool off.
