BILLIONAIRES and business figures including Brexiteer James Dyson have been found to own UK properties via overseas companies.
Several tycoons were featured on a list that a Guardian investigation revealed, including at least 20 donors to the Tory party.
The declarations are made on the UK Government’s new register of overseas entities.
Holding property through offshore companies is legal and all those named as beneficial owners on the register have complied with their obligations to declare the holdings.
However, the register shows how billions of pounds of primarily London property is owned via jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and the Channel Islands.
The Guardian said that it believes there is a “public interest in reporting on the business interests and property ownership structures of wealthy and influential people”.
Dyson is named on the register as the beneficial owner of Weybourne Holdings Pte, a multinational based in Singapore that also houses the Dyson appliances company.
Analysis from the newspaper suggests that Weybourne owns 31 UK properties, which records indicate are worth at least £287 million.
Dyson previously faced criticism when he relocated his companies to Singapore having previously touted Brexit as a great opportunity for entrepreneurs.
He maintained the move had “nothing to do with Brexit” and simply allowed his firm to become a hub in one of the world’s most innovative regions.
Assets owned by Weybourne Holdings include office blocks in Mayfair and Camden, a £43m strip of land on the Greenwich peninsula as well as sites in York and Oxfordshire.
Most of these were owned by the UK-based Weybourne Group until 2019, the year Dyson moved to Singapore, when they were transferred to Weybourne Holdings Pte.
Lawyers for Dyson said that there was no tax advantage gained by owning the properties through Weybourne Holdings Pte, adding that some of the properties were occupied by entities within the Dyson group.
Weybourne’s ownership of the properties was a matter of public record and reflected investment in the UK, they added.
Another name on the list is the owner of Camden Market, Teddy Sagi, who was named as the owner of 27 companies on the register.
Those companies own multiple properties including real estate in Camden Market.
A spokesperson for Sagi said he welcomed the register.
They said: “As a result of the global nature of his businesses his assets are handled by a range of companies in accordance with the advice provided by local consultants in each country he invests in.”
They added that Sagi’s property interests were “comprised only of UK tax resident property-owning entities. Therefore, all properties are fully taxed in accordance with UK law in an entirely transparent manner.”
