Gulf royals own more than ?1bn of UK property via tax havens

Read More

The royal families of Gulf states including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar own more than ?1bn of UK property via offshore jurisdictions, such as Jersey and the British Virgin Islands, the Guardian can reveal.

Nearly 200 properties, including hotels, London mansions and country estates, belong to a few small but super-rich dynasties, according to analysis of a new government register that reveals who is behind offshore companies that own UK property.

Gulf royals who hold assets through offshore entities include Sheikh Mansour, the owner of Manchester City football club, members of the Al Saud ruling family of Saudi Arabia, and the al-Thani clan that controls Qatar.

The most expensive is a ?150m Surrey estate which, according to Land Registry documents, is owned by Sheikh Mansour’s wife, Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed al-Maktoum.

Sheikh Mansour, who is the deputy prime minister of the UAE, owns 17 other land titles via Jersey, including a London apartment and land connected to urban developments in Manchester.

The Saudi royal family also holds a vast array of property via offshore entities, including the Holme, a lakeside manor in the middle of London’s Regent’s Park, built in 1818.

The property is owned by a Guernsey-based entity, whose beneficial owners include Abdullah bin Khalid Al Saud, the kingdom’s representative at the United Nations. It was reportedly for sale for ?185m in 2020.

Another royal, Turki bin Salman Al Saud, is the ninth son of the king and brother to the country’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. Turki Al Saud owns a BVI-based company called Moncrieff Holdings, which owns 18 properties in London, including flats in the Pinto Tower in Nine Elms.

Qatari royals have also used offshore jurisdictions to spend vast sums on UK property. Sheikh Thani bin Abdullah al-Thani, a member of the dynasty that has ruled over Qatar since the 19th century, owns 12 companies on the register of overseas entities, all of them based in the British Virgin Islands.

Those companies own 16 properties, including 160 Great Portland Street in London, a seven-floor office block purchased for ?127m in 2018, according to Land Registry records.

The sheikh’s property empire also includes a ?48m office building on London’s Southwark Street, three addresses worth a combined ?31m in Soho and the headquarters of the technology company Sony on Great Marlborough Street.

Another member of the clan, Mohamed Khalifa al-Thani, bought 1 Queen Anne’s Gate, a 27-apartment block on the edge of St James’s Park near Buckingham Palace, for ?139m in 2019. The development was designed by David Linley, the son of the late Princess Margaret.

Previous Guardian analysis has shown that the Qataris own approximately ?10bn of UK property, including prestige assets such as the Shard and Harrods. But the register of overseas entities reveals for the first time how the al-Thanis and other Gulf royals have used offshore jurisdictions to expand their UK property holdings.

In total, members of the ruling families of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan and Bahrain own nearly 200 properties worth at least ?1bn via offshore companies in the BVIs, Jersey, Guernsey and Panama.

The Guardian is shining a light on owners named on the register in view of the public interest in improving transparency around the ownership of British property. Holding properties through offshore companies is legal and some individuals may have genuine and legitimate privacy or security concerns or business reasons for using them.

The register of overseas entities opened last year and individuals have until 31 January to declare they are the beneficial owners of offshore companies that own UK property.