From top: Bob Geldof at the National Library of Ireland in 2017 when, as Chairman of the Band Aid Trust, he handed over the trust’s archive to the library; video explaining Mauritius Leaks 

This morning.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published details of its latest tax avoidance investigation, Mauritius Leaks.

Among those under the spotlight is a hedge fund led by Bob Geldof.

Will Fitzgibbon reports:

Bob Geldof’s firm wanted to buy a chicken farm in Uganda, one of the poorest countries on earth.

But first, an errand.

After soaring to fame in the 1980s for organising Live Aid and other anti-famine efforts, the former Boomtown Rats rocker had shifted to the high-powered world of international finance.

He founded a U.K.-based private equity firm that aimed to generate a 20% return by buying stakes in African businesses, according to a memorandum from an investor.

The fund’s investments would all be on the African continent.

Yet its London-based legal advisers asked that one of its headquarters be set up more than 2,000 miles away on Mauritius, according to a new trove of leaked documents.

The tiny Indian Ocean island has become a destination for the rich and powerful to avoid taxes with discretion and a financial powerhouse in its own right.

One of the discussion points in the firm’s decision: “tax reasons,” according to the email sent from London lawyers to Mauritius.

Treasure Island: Leak Reveals How Mauritius Siphons Tax From Poor Nations To Benefit Elites (ICIJ)

Rollingnews

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13 thoughts on “The Fock?

  1. Ian-O

    History won’t be kind to Geldof.

    His good buddy Murdoch has helped with his image over the years but the reality of this avaricious, scruffy clown will be there for all to see.

    And Band Aid was an utterly poopy-plops song as well.

  2. GiggidyGoo

    But sure we knew that Didn’t brave Sir Bob not announce it by megaphone in his punt in the Thames – oh sorry- no he didn’t

  3. D

    I mean I am not the greatest Sir Bob fan.

    If he is running an investment fund for Africa, surely it is better for Africa not having the tax going to their own corrupt governments or the UK government who will do nothing for Africa, right?

    It’s not like U2 inc or Google and so on, where their goal is altogether less altruistic.

    If it was operating outside the law, fair enough.

    If it was operating inside the law, then maybe the law should be amended by popular decree.

    Great that light has been shed on this all the same.

  4. Mike Baldwin

    It was a fund solely aimed at investment in Africa? To supply capital to entrepreneurial people in order to contribute to economic growth in neglected regions of the world. And it was expected to ‘fund itself’?? With a return to investors who could indulge in less risky pursuits? Is this some kind of ‘Capitalism cripples humanity’ piece?

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