RISHI Sunak’s wife invested in a furniture business that benefitted from nearly £300,000 in taxpayer-funded loans handed out while he was chancellor, it has emerged.
Millionaire Akshata Murty held shares in The New Craftsmen, an upmarket firm whose range included a £7340 mirror.
The business collapsed into liquidation in November last year, according to Companies House filings, and was sold later that month to former company employee Sarah Myerscough.
The unsecured creditors – those who are not guaranteed to receive what they are owed when a company fails – include employees who were owed £75,437, and trade and consumer creditors who were due more than £412,000.
Taxpayers would appear to have lost out in two ways according to filings.
Lloyds Bank had lent the business £37,500 under the Covid bounce-back loan scheme introduced by Sunak in April 2020. The bank is listed among the unsecured creditors, whose claims exceed the assets in the business by £535,863.
The government also held 450,000 shares in the company via the £250m Future Fund, which was brought in by Sunak to help small start-ups survive the crisis.
A source familiar with the loan told the Guardian the UK Government lent The New Craftsmen £250,000, a sum that was matched by private investors.
The loan was converted into equity, Company House fillings suggest, the value of which has been wiped out.
As well as the Government, the company’s shareholder register included Prudence MacLeod, the eldest child of Rupert Murdoch, who held the largest single stake.
Murty also loses out via the 218,785 shares she owned in the business through Catamaran Ventures UK, a vehicle that invests the vast wealth she derives from a 0.91% stake in her father’s Indian IT business, Infosys.
It emerged last year Murty claimed non-domicile status to pay less tax just two months after Sunak took up his post as chancellor.
Non-domiciled status – which is entirely legal – means that UK residents whose permanent “home” is outside the UK may not have to pay UK tax on foreign income or inheritance tax.
It was reported last year Murty has a £400 million stake in Indian IT giant Infosys.
She subsequently gave up her status amid public outrage.
Based on Infosys’ latest share price, the holding makes the prime minister’s wife worth at least £590m.
