Prime Energy bankruptcy: false promises and Bertrand Piccard’s fees

Hundreds of savers in French-speaking Switzerland were seduced by the photovoltaic investment promised by the now bankrupt company Prime Energy Cleantech. An investigation has revealed that a sixth of their money actually went into property. The Mise au Point programme on Swiss public television, RTS, also reveals the fees of adventurer and environmentalist Bertrand Piccard, the company's ambassador for almost ten years: CHF100,000 ($113,000) a year, as well as shares in the company. Bankruptcy struck like a bolt of lightning in an otherwise cloudless sky. Since 2011, Prime Energy Cleantech (PEC) had had all the makings of a success story. Its credo: credible, reliable and profitable renewable energies. It sold green bonds to private individuals to finance the installation of photovoltaic power plants in Switzerland and Europe. In total, it raised some CHF122 million from around 2,000 investors, mainly in French-speaking Switzerland, some of whom invested a large part of their ...