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)