CREVE COEUR — A company that contributed $1.5 million to help Missouri Treasurer Vivek Malek win a full four-year term is tied to leaders at an Indian information technology firm run by the treasurer’s brother.
The donations from Pacifica Consulting Services LLC to a political action committee backing Malek have helped vault him to a clear money lead over his challengers in Tuesday’s Republican primary for treasurer.
The sizable checks make the obscure limited liability company among the largest donors to a statewide candidate this election cycle, approaching megadonor Rex Sinquefield’s $2 million in donations since 2022 to a political action committee supporting Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe in the high-profile Republican contest for governor.
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Yet what Pacifica actually does is unclear, and company representatives, its politically connected lawyers and Malek’s campaign didn’t disclose anything about the services it provides. The company has no website and no one answered a phone number listed online for the company. Its address is in the same building as Malek’s law office in Creve Coeur.
Missouri business records show that Pacifica’s manager is a vice president at Gemini Solutions, an Indian-based software engineering and IT consulting firm run by CEO Vishal Malik, Malek’s brother.
(Malek, who immigrated to the U.S. in 2001, changed the spelling of his last name from “Malik†when he became a U.S. citizen in 2017. He said the new spelling is closer to how his name is pronounced in India and that people often thought Malik was his first name.)
In 2010, that he started Pacifica, then incorporated in India, to help foreign students gain admittance to U.S. universities. Malek incorporated Pacifica in Missouri in 2012, and he withdrew his name from Pacifica’s paperwork in December 2022, days after Gov. Mike Parson announced he was appointing him to fill the vacant treasurer’s office.
said it was founded in the New Delhi area in 2012 and has since grown to 1,200 employees with five offices in India and three in North America, including one on Olive Boulevard in Creve Coeur, a mile away from Malek’s law office on Mason Road.
Last week, the rows of computers and desks in Gemini Solutions’ offices in an Olive Boulevard office building were empty. A worker in the building said he occasionally sees employees in the offices.
In the December 2022 business filing in which Malek withdrew his name from Pacifica Consulting, Pacifica lists Lovish Sanghvi as its manager.
Sanghvi is a senior vice president at Gemini Solutions, according to the company’s website. His LinkedIn says he works for Gemini out of Austin, Texas, where Gemini Solutions has an office and its U.S. subsidiary is incorporated. Parent company Gemini Solutions Private Limited is based in the New Delhi area of India, according to Indian incorporation documents. Gemini says its niche is with clients in financial services and that it provides a range of services, including application development, network and security management and helpdesk support.
Sanghvi could not be reached for comment.
In a 2012 filing claiming the Gemini Solutions name in Missouri, Vishal Malik, Gemini’s CEO, is listed as an owner along with Pacifica Consulting.
Vishal Malik and Pacifica are also listed as the owners of another entity, Gemini Techsoft LLC. Malek was the registered agent for that company, which dissolved in 2022.
Vishal Malik could not be reached for comment.
Gemini Solutions is registered in Missouri as a fictitious name, and the actual owner of the entity listed on state business documents is Pacifica Consulting Services. Malek’s wife, Riju, is also listed as an owner of Pacifica on Gemini’s Missouri documents.
In an email Tuesday, Ed Greim of politically connected Kansas City law firm Graves Garrett Greim, said he represented Pacifica and warned against implying that Pacifica had made any illegal campaign contributions.
“Pacifica is a Missouri-formed, Missouri-based entity that derives its revenue from domestic clients,†Greim wrote. “Its past decade of significant business from Missouri and U.S. clients has been far more than necessary to fund its recent contributions to a Missouri PAC; it has paid every penny of its federal and state taxes on that U.S. income; and a U.S. citizen was the sole and exclusive decisionmaker in Pacifica’s contributions of U.S.-generated revenues to a Missouri PAC.â€
Greim did not respond to a follow-up question about whether Vishal Malik was the U.S. citizen “decisionmaker.â€
Greim’s firm represents Torch Electronics, which critics say promotes illegal slot machines. Malek drew controversy earlier this year when he approved a plan to place stickers and video ads on Torch’s sprawling empire of unregulated gas station gambling machines and payout kiosks as a way to highlight the state’s unclaimed property website, which the treasurer’s office oversees. He walked back the decision in February after criticism from some lawmakers.
The Malek PAC, American Promise, has spent nearly $2.8 million this cycle and had over $300,000 on hand last week. Malek’s candidate committee had spent nearly $1.8 million and still had $765,000 on hand as of Monday.
Rep. Cody Smith, R-Carthage, is among six Republicans running for the seat. The chairman of the House Budget Committee for the past six years reported having spent $628,000 and had $120,000 on hand this week. The Smith-allied Ozark Gateway Leadership PAC had spent $325,000 and had $66,000 on hand, according to a campaign finance report filed this week.
Another candidate, Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, spent $215,000 on the race but had just $2,200 left on hand this week. The pro-Koenig Freedom’s Promise PAC had spent $1 million on the campaign and had just $2,700 left on hand.
The largely self-funded campaign of Springfield attorney Lori Rook has spent almost $350,000 on the race and still had more than $200,000 on hand.
Other GOP candidates include Tina Goodrick, of St. Joseph, and Karan Pujji, of Berkeley.
Mark Osmack is the lone Democrat seeking the post. He made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2018.