The Long Read: Ownership of Pensand House & Marlborough Court Hythe, a little clearer.

It’s complicated, but then it always is when you are looking at opaque offshore structures.

The tenants in Pensand House (pictured below after revamp) & Marlborough Court are being offered homes over 300 miles away. The Council are unlikely to lift a finger in our opinion. The reason being is that if Pensand House gets a significant revamp, this will positively affect the value of the land the swimming pool sits on in South Rd, Hythe. 

So we thought we’d take another look at the ownership of the property we blogged about in June 2018 and Sept 2016.  The owners/shareholders have after all received £357,000 in Housing Benefit from the UK state between 2014 – 2017. Since then, we are not quite sure, but we’d guess that in total they may have received in excess of half a million if not more.

So first we take a look at the countries where either the shareholders or directors have been registered in. Then we look at the shareholders and then the directors. 

So lets begin first with the Countries, where either the shareholders or the directors have been or are registered.

1. 1. The United Kingdom

   2. Russia

   3. Spain

1. 1. Gibraltar – a “dodgy tax haven“

1. 1. Malta – a tax haven

1. 1. Luxembourg – a tax haven

1. 1. USA – Nevada – a tax haven

1. British Virgin Islands – a tax haven

2. The Bahamas – a tax haven

3. Panama – a tax haven

Now lets take a look at the shareholders/owners, then the directors. 

Shareholders/owners:

It’s owned by Chelsea Portfolio Limited according to the Land Registry. However, according to companies house it is owned by it ultimate parent company of Frasertown Ltd, based in Gibraltar. 

Frasertown’s shareholders are Valmet Nominees Ltd located in Gibraltar and have been named in the Panama Papers not once, but twice. 

The other shareholder in Frasertown Ltd is Finsbury Nominees Ltd who too have been named in the Panama Papers.

Now the address the two shareholders are registered to, Suites 7B & 8B, 50 Town Range, PO BOX 472, Gibraltar is mentioned in the Panama Papers, not once  not twice but three times. And Olliver Bullough has said that Gibraltar is a ‘dodgy tax haven‘ 

Both shareholders were registered in a company set up on new year’s eve 2003. The Company was called  Manhattan Real Estate LLC,  registered in Nevada, USA, but they stood down on 02/07/2004.  Shareholders in a Nevada corporation and owners in a Nevada LLC are not a matter of public record-shareholders can remain completely anonymous. On the same day a company by the name of MANHATTAN REAL ESTATE LIMITED was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and was directly related to the Nevada company – the BVI’s are a tax haven – which also does not make its shareholders a matter of public record.

The remaining shareholders in Manhattan Real Estate LLC are Line Nominees Limited and Line Holdings Limited both based in Gibraltar, where Frasertown is based too and both named in the Panama Papers.

Manhattan Real Estate LLC (Nevada) has two managers:

1: Susan Teresa Gager (pictured below left) who is Head of Corporate Services Dept for Line Group Limited, Gibraltar and has worked for them between June 1999 – Present (19 years 4 months).  And she also works for Hassans Law Firm as Head of Gibraltar Corporate Dept and has worked for them between June 1999 – Present (19 years 4 months)

 

2: Mrs Teresa Maria Golt (pictured above right) also works for the Line Group Limited and Hassans Law Firm based in Gibraltar as Head of International Companies Department. 

We make it clear they manage Manhattan Real Estate LLC, they are NOT the shareholders/owners and neither Finsbury Nominees or Valmet Nominees Ltd have anything to do with the company anymore.

Now before we move on it is essential to know Finsbury Trust & Corporate Services – Gilbraltar and the people behind it all too often in this story and some appear in the Panama Papers. They are:

• DAVID DENNIS CUBY

  JAMES DAVID HASSAN

  MAURICE ALBERT PERERA

  AMANDA JOY MARSH

  SUBASH MALKANI

  ADRIAN GERARD OLIVERO

  WILLIAM DAMIAN CID DE LA PAZ

Gilbraltar; which as a tax haven offers: Confidentiality for the Beneficial Owners of companies; Zero taxation for Non Resident Trusts; No capital gains or wealth taxes; No inheritance tax; and  where tax on interest, dividends and royalties has been abolished under the new Income Tax Act. Great for the shareholders, but of no consequence for those being decanted to Durham.

Directors:

Moving onto the The Director of Frasertown, that is Valdir Managers Ltd located in Gibraltar, and registered at the address which has been mentioned in the Panama Papers three times. Valdir have themselves been named in the Panama Papers

According to companies house Valdir Managers Ltd have been or remain as directors in 23 companies. One of which is called Tewkesbury Finance Limited; which we’ll come back to.

Valdir have been and/or are directors in 21 Maltese Companies

Valdir were appointed as directors in Delek-Belron Luxembourg S.A. on the 09/25/2015 and stepped down as directors on the 08/05/2017 according to the Luxembourg Company Register

Valdir Managers Ltd were directors in 3 Panamanian registered companies and remain registered in 1 active company, by the name of Senalton Capital Inc, as Director/Treasurer. Their  resident agent/legal representative in Panama is Icaza Gonzalez-Ruis & Aleman a Panamanian law firm that boasts on its website that it has subsidiaries in the main tax havens around the world and to create for its clients “zero-risk bankruptcy structures, including trusts, partnerships, private interest foundations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships. The law firm’s name appears in the Panama Papers and the Bahama Leaks and was named in a corruption scandal in Spain

There are three other directors of interest in Senalton Capital Inc,  who have appeared in no less than 17,792 companies, some active, some not.

The first is  Adrian Gerard John Olivero, who we named above and in our previous blog post about Pensand House (pictured below) & Malborough Court back in June 2018. He is/or was registered as a Director in Galpan International S.A. registered in Panama and named in the Panama Papers. Now Adrian uses the trick of either using his full name or shortened version Adrian Gerard Olivero or just Adrian Olivero at Companies House,(2nd to 8th name).

Second is Ezequiel Ruiz Rodríguez , a Panamanian citizen who appears as a “general proxy”/director  present in 8,591 companies in this tax haven. The other, the third is Lillian De Muschett who appears to be a proxy director and has been or remains involved in 9,400 companies. She also appears in the Panama Papers.

Rodriguez, De Muschett and the law firm Icaza, Gonzalez-Ruis & Aleman, were all named in the Barcenas Papers a corruption scandal in Spain that affected the ruling People’s Party (PP).

Coming back to Tewkesbury Finance Limited, Valdir Managers Ltd and Maurice Albert Perera are directors of the company and the Person of Significant Control is Irina Korchagina a resident in Moscow, Russia. According to the last Annual Return filed at companies house, the sole shareholder in the company was Valmet Nominees Ltd (last page) who are one of the shareholders in Frasertown Ltd in Gibraltar who own Chelsea Portfolio Ltd who own Pensand House and Malborough Court.

However, we believe that Irina Korchagina may well be a proxy director and probably not the true owner, that is likely to be someone else, and we will continue to look.

Also the directors in Tewkesbury Finance Limited are Valdir Managers Ltd and Mr Maurice Albert Perera  of Gibraltar, named above and in the Panama Papers . This we believe is NOT a coincidence.

But it doesn’t stop there. Tewkesbury Finance Ltd own a subsidiary (see page 4) in Spain by the name of Tewkesbury Espana S.L. and Irina Korchagina shows up there too. Along with a one Stephanie de Groote and a Petr Sivetc. The spanish company is registered between Marbella and Gibraltar, where Valmet Nominees Ltd is registered.

So the people behind the ownership of Pensand House and Marlborough Court are perhaps a little clearer. What is clear is far too many individuals or companies crop up in the Panama Papers; which exposed illegal tax evasion, and uncovered criminality. 

And please don’t forget Chelsea Portfolio Ltd the owners of Pensand House (pictured) & Marlborough Court, and/or companies related to them have received in excess of half a million pounds of taxpayers money via Housing Benefit.

So was Cllr Laura Sullivan right to stir up tensions as claimed by the Folkestone & Hythe Express? We firmly believe she was, as the structure of the companies behind Chelsea Portfolio Ltd are in our humble opinion, shady and opaque to say the least, and a lot of public money has gone to them.

So as we said at the beginning, it’s complicated, but then it always is when you are looking at opaque offshore structures.

The Shepwayvox Team – Dissent is NOT a Crime

There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any people, companies or other entities included in this blogpost have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly unless found so by a court of law.