BERLIN, GERMANY/ BANGKOK, THAILAND - EQS - 29August 2019 - Former employees of the Thai jewelry manufacturer PWK haveentered, assisted by the Thai Police, the factory building in Chanthaburi province,which was closed due to a lack of liquidity, and have identified and securedcompany property, based on a Thai Labor Court order issued June 12, 2019. PWKis a subsidiary of elumeo SE, a jewelry retailer that has made negativeheadlines. The angry workers, who had been deprived of their legally requiredseverance pay, had obtained a Writ of Execution, from the Thai Courts. Thisgives them the right to enter the company's premises and "confiscate andsequestrate the assets" as compensation for the unpaid compensation andsalaries. Days earlier, some of the once more than 600 bruised Thai employeeshad protested against the management of elumeo SE and its supporters in frontof the German embassy in Bangkok and in front of the PWK company building in Chanthaburiprovince,also paying their respects to a former worker, which was dismissed and unpaid,the 39 years old Miss Pranee Ngampanya, mother of a small child. She lost herlife on August 15, 2019, being unable to pay for her medical care and unable toprofit from the social insurance plan.

For the elumeo management under the chairman of theboard, Wolfgang Boyé, this is another bad news. As already reported severaltimes in the media, the jewelry retailer elumoe SE, which sells jewelry via theTV and Internet channel "Juwelo", had set up a jewelry factory inThailand. The capacity of the factory was originally designed for 2 millionpieces of jewelry per year. However, the distribution of the jewelry via TV andthe Internet fell far short of expectations. The management under the formerScholz & Friends ad-man Wolfgang Boyé steered the company "elumeoSE" with its sales subsidiary "Juwelo GmbH" into an economiccrisis. Under Boyé, turnover collapsed, and the share fell into the penny-stocksegment. But instead of properly dismissing workers in Thailand and paying themthe statutory severance pay, Wolfgang Boyé tried to drop all responsibility onPWK's local Directors, asking them to settle all company debts against companyassets.

Despite the lack of response in the market,Wolfgang Boyé and his team continued to order jewelry from PWK in Thailand.More than EUR 30 million was shipped from Thailand to Germany. But only a smallfraction of the goods was actually paid for. As a result, the jewelrymanufacturer PWK could no longer pay its salaries and its creditors. Thus, theleadership of elumeo SE encouraged them to pay the creditors, salaries andelectricity bills by selling or offsetting the company assets, however, in ane-mail from Silverline (the company used by elumeo to hold the shares of PWK),the managing directors of the PWK were strictly forbidden from "any sale,transfer or other disposition of any assets of the company at less than marketvalue", making practically impossible for the Directors to settle anydebts.

In addition to politicians, police authorities andpublic prosecutors in Thailand and Germany are investigating Wolfgang Boyé andhis co-managers for fraud. elumeo SE also has to defend itself against amulti-million lawsuit. Gems suppliers of the elumeo subsidiary, PWK, alreadysued the company because they were not paid, among them the big diamondsupplier Flawless. Other creditors like Bright Future and G4S are also notpaid.

The asset managers of FPM (Frankfurt PerformanceManagement), who prevented the appointment of a special auditor, by votingagainst this, proved to be an important supporter of the failing elumeo managerWolfgang Boyé at the last annual shareholder meeting. The auditor was supposedto investigate why the once promising company under Wolfgang Boyé's managementwas able to go down such a steep slope. The special auditor was also to shedlight on the events surrounding the closure of the jewelry manufacturer PWK.

The developments on elumeo SE situation and thetreatment of the PWK employees in Thailand will also be of interest by theNorwegian State Fund, the largest state fund in the world. FPM, Boyé'ssupporters advise the Norwegian State Fund on German equities. After a majorinvestment of NOK 40 million in elumeo in 2015, the shareholding amounted toNOK 2 million in 2018. The fund's investment guidelines are based on theprinciples of ethical investment. The fund no longer invests in companies thatmanufacture weapons of mass destruction or violate human and labour rights.

In view of the current events surrounding thejewelry manufacturer PWK, FPM is likely to be in need of explanation not onlybecause of the apparently poor investment in the wobbling elumeo SE, but alsobecause of the gross violation of employee rights at the elumeo subsidiary PWK.It would not be the first time, by the way, that the Norwegians would drawconclusions from this: The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund has ended itsparticipation in the American trading giant Walmart due to the disregard ofemployee rights.