Who Wants to Build on a Rare Wild Beach in Bulgaria? Mind the horns!

A document from the Trade Registry reveals the owners of “Madara Europe.” However, “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund” is not required to declare individual end owners under the law named after shady media mogul and Member of the Parliament Delyan Peevski.

The company “Madara Europe” (formerly “Mayfair Group”), which wants to build on the wild Bulgarian beach Karadere a vacation complex, designed by Norman Foster, partner of Georgiy Stanishev (brother of Sergei Stanishev, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP, the Party of the European Socialists, PES, and former Prime Minister of Bulgaria – editor’s note) received encouragement from the state as priority investor. This provoked strong protests from environmentalists, who insist on a full ban of any and all construction work in protected areas.

A reference in the Daxy registry shows that “Madara Europe” has a capital of 50 000 levs and is owned by the offshore company “Rainbow Malta (Holdings) Limited.” The actual property is quite well concealed and wrapped in mystery even after the new law against offshore companies, written by the infamous MP Delyan Peevski, becomes effective.

According to the response of “Madara Europe” to “Capital” weekly, sent in May 2013, the company was founded by two English investment funds (“Rainbow Malta” and “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund”), which include “as investors English financial institutions, retirement funds and wealthy private investors.”

In early 2013, the Financial Supervision Commission published a negative opinion on the proposal of “Mayfair Group” to buy 100% of the capital of “Black Sea Investment Trust” JSC for nearly 20 million euros. The Commission found that “Mayfair” had only 31 thousand levs. The decision shows that “Rainbow Group Services Limited” “owns significant stake in “Rainbow Malta (Holdings) Limited”, and that “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund Limited,” which is registered in Jersey, also has “significant participation in “Rainbow Malta (Holdings) Limited.” The company, however, has not offered more precise data on the “significant stakes” of one or the other offshore company.

By mid – 2013, the ownership structure changed and currently remains the same: “Rainbow Group Services Limited” (registered in the British Virgin Islands with a manager from the British Crown dependency off the coast of Normandy, the island of Guernsey) owns 809 shares of one pound each from the capital of “Rainbow Malta (Holdings) Limited,” while the registered in Jersey “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund” has only one share of one pound – this is evidenced by a document filed in the Trade Registry on July 7, 2013.

According to data, published on March 18, in the Trade Registry, the end owners of “Rainbow Group Services Limited” are British citizens Francine Gail Wickham, Ewan Gail Short, Nigel Vernon Short, Louise Elizabeth Short, Mark John Davis, Sarah Janet Davis, Paul Riley and Nicholas David Gallivan.

The end owners of “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund” are not announced. Past press releases of the company show that the Chairman of the Fund is Timothy Chadwick, while “Madara Capital” LLP, a company registered in the United Kingdom, is the investment adviser to the “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund.”

Brits with companies for whiskey and hotel business, but not worth millions

So far Bivol was able to find in the British trade registry data on Nicholas David Gallivan and Nigel Vernon Short. The search for the other wealthy Brits continues.

Nicholas David Gallivan is director of the companies: Browns Hotel (Laugharne) Limited, Scarlets Regional Limited, Redi 256 Limited and of the rugby club Llanelli Rfc Limited, which is owned by Scarlets.

Of these, only Scarlets Regional Limited is more significant with almost 8 million pounds turnover in 2012. Nigel Vernon Short is also director of this company, but he and Nicholas Gallivan do not own shares in it.

Moreover, Nicholas David Gallivan and Nigel Vernon Short are directors of the company Redi 256 Ltd, in which Nigel Short has half of the shares. The turnover of this company is not impressive.

Nigel Short is the majority shareholder with 69.92% (2,533,675.00 pounds) of The Welsh Whisky Company Limited, which has a profit of 3,792,851 pounds in 2013.

He is the sole owner of the capital of Browns Hotel (Laugharne) Limited, which amounts to 350,000 pounds. L

Of all Englishmen, only Paul Riley and Nicholas Gallivan are involved in management of companies in Bulgaria. Paul Riley is a representative and board member of “Bulgarian Property Investment Trust” JSC and “Black Sea Investment Trust” and Nicholas David Gallivan is a member of the supervisory board in both companies, which are the sole property of that same offshore company “Rainbow Group Services Limited.”

The “Bulgarian Property Investment Trust” and “Black Sea Investment Trust” are members of the association KAMCHIYA SANDS – PCHELNIK – SHKORPILOVTSI – OBZOR, together with the municipalities of Byala and Avren, the Town Hall of Obzor, the municipality of Goren Chiflik and other companies and investors “hungry” to build on protected areas of the coast south of Varna.

“Bulgarian Property Investment Trust” has 33,551,227 levs in deposited capital and BLACK SEA INVESTMENT TRUST has deposited 8,912,704 levs. Obviously, these are the companies that will funnel the money for the project estimated at 100 million euros as “Madara Europe,” itself, has been granted a loan from “Bulgarian Property Investment Trust,” according to documents from the Trade Registry.

The Bulgarians in both companies are Georgi Petrov Todorov, who co-owns the instant credit company “Varna Credit Group,” Sava Nikolov Sabev, owner of several consulting firms and accountant Angel Kalev Donev.

The “Madara” Mystery

Obviously, the investment of over 100 million euros in the project for construction in Karadere cannot come only from the above “wealthy Englishmen,” claiming to be the owners of “Rainbow Group Services Limited.” The project will rely on money from “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund,” registered in Jersey. This is also evidenced by the fact that its Chairman, Timothy Chadwick, is presented in public as the main investor and spokesman for the project.

Why the end owners of “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund” are not declared under the law “Peevski” (Article 3.13)? Under this Act, the Anglo- Norman islands are not an offshore zone, as they do not fall within the definition of “jurisdictions with preferential tax regime.”

It is known that precisely Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man are some of the preferred destinations for concealing real ownership of assets. For example, the ownership of TV7, which officially registered to the English “Allegro Capital,” is concealed in Jersey.

Bivol obtained an updated list of shareholders of “Madara Bulgarian Property Fund,” which has a capital of 60,484,351 euros. Among the shareholders, two Bulgarians are found as well, whose stakes are more modest: Ivan Nenov from Sofia with 31,668 euros and Hristo Manev from Varna, who on December 9, 2013, recorded shares of 263,158 euros.

The most interesting entities in this list are large shareholders as Citifriend Nominee, Credit Suisse Client Nominees (UK) and the registered in the British Virgin Islands Moran Trade & Investments. These financial instruments are designed precisely to conceal the real investors and do not facilitate at all the finding of the end owners in this multi-level offshore scheme. Bivol will, however, try everything possible to shed light on them as much as possible in the follow-up of this investigation.