As I noted at the end of the previous post, the ICIJ  has added to their Offshore Leaks database, with what they are calling the Bahamas Leaks. This seems to involve company information from the Bahamian official records, and the data is in a slightly different format to the previous leaks. But this came at a good moment, having just finished a post about the Butterfield Trust, which has a base in the Bahamas. Butterfield Trust appears as an intermediary in the Bahamas Leaks, and it wasn’t hard to find a New Zealand connection.

One of the first in the Butterfield list of entities is Barkton Ltd (formerly Westmed Enterprises Ltd), a Bahamian company in which Peter John Brigham features prominently. Brigham is the secretary in this company formed in 1990, and another, Avondale Ltd, which appears to have been struck off in 2005. Brigham is also the director of Rosemont Monaco SAM, which describes itself as a “full family office service”, and, in other words, provides fiduciary services in the offshore world. Brigham appears on their website along with trust officers, Lesley Fogden and David Brand. All three appear as directors in a New Zealand company, Rosemont Trustees (NZ) Ltd, that was only formed in May 2016, and is owned by Rosemont International Services Ltd (BVI). Fogden and Brand are also directors in older companies, and these are owned by Fleetwood Trustees Ltd, based in St Kitts & Nevis.

Before looking at Fleetwood’s New Zealand companies further, I will refer to the ICIJ database again, and go back to the Panama Papers. Fleetwood Trustees appears as an ‘officer’ once in the Panama Papers, as one of the shareholders in Winspear Business SA, incorporated in 2007 in the British Virgin Islands. Fleetwood appear to have taken over the shareholding of a Samantha Lewis of Monaco. The intermediary was listed as Rosemont Monaco SAM, and there are 10 other entities listed for them in the Panama Papers. Haidian Resources Ltd is another BVI registered company, incorporated in January 2007, and still active. The shareholder was a Mr Saman Ahsani of Monaco, until 2014, when Rosebank Ltd (BVI) took over. Rosebank is also the shareholder in Appollo Holdins Group Corp., again taking over from Mr Ahsani. He is also the beneficiary of Una Oil Ltd (BVI), which was incorporated in 1991, along with other members of his family. The company appears to have been set up in Jersey, but the intermediary is Technical Services Ltd (Monaco).

Una Oil Ltd is now well known after being implicated as a ‘bribery factory’ by the Fairfax media in Australia, and the Huffington Post, in March this year, just before the Panama Papers were released. The Fairfax media in New Zealand did a small follow up, after discovering that Una Oil was linked to a Singapore company, that was in turn owned by Una Energy Trustees Ltd, a New Zealand company. They identified the foreign director, Lesley Ann Fogden, of Monaco, as well as the director from the New Zealand administrator, Jackson Russell Law of Auckland. Richard George Wilson stated that he just acted on instruction, and believed Rosemont Monaco SAM to be “a very reputable organisation of English professionals.” Una Energy Trustees had been set up in December 2011, with the original director being Douglas Philippe Malcolm Peters of France. Una Energy Trustees was also one of the many companies on the New Zealand register to file consecutive years of ‘non-activity’ declarations, as if it didn’t actually do anything in particular. Peters and Fogden are also the directors of Triple A Trustees Ltd, incorporated in 2013 by Jackson Russell, which appears to follow a similar pattern. Fleetwood Trustees also own a further four New Zealand companies: Kernco Trust Company and Nevera Trustees Ltd are directed by Fogden and David Brand; while Merc Trustees and Gerad Trustees Ltd are directed by Clive Alistair Tucker, and Rohit Baboobhai Choksy, both of Monaco. The latter don’t appear to work for Rosemont, but seem to be associated with them as freelance trust officers.

I will now get back to the Butterfield Trust and a few names that appear in the Bahamas Leaks. Julien D. Martel was the head of the Butterfield Trust in the Bahamas, and a director of the Butterfield Trust (NZ) Ltd until April 2010. He now appears to be a director of IPG Trustees Ltd in Auckland, which is administered by the Anchor Trustees firm, on behalf of the IPG Group of Nassau, Bahamas. I just have to mention the address he has given, being “Hard Bargain West Eastern RD.” His fellow directors are Andrew David Law, of Dick’s Point Close (Nassau), and Christopher Clerey of Switzerland. The IPG Family Office Ltd of Nassau appear in the Bahamas Leaks with 183 entities. One of the key identities in the Bahamas financial sector is Paul J. Winder, who is an associate with IPG, and was formerly with the Intertrust Group, which gets him into the Bahamas Leaks as part of their 293 entities. Winder is also linked to the Holdun Family Office Ltd. By following one of the other officers, Brendan Dunn, we can see that Holdun is an abbreviation of Holt-Dunn, a Canadian family firm of financiers. Brendan Holt-Dunn and Paul Winder also appear as New Zealand company directors: firstly of the Holdun Trust Ltd, which owned Holdun Investment Partners, which owned Intermetrica International Ltd. These companies were set up by the Nexus Trust in Auckland, but were administered by Cone Marshall from mid 2014 as Winder bowed out. The Holdun Family Office of Nassau is still the apparent owner, even though Holdun has become Humboldt Trust Ltd, with the retirement of Brendan Dunn in May 2016. Just have to note that he lives at “The Wee House” in Nassau, Bahamas.