Nigerian
oil baroness, Folorunsho Alakija, owns five apartments in London’s One
Hyde Park, the world’s most expensive apartment block, it has been
revealed.
In its latest issue out at the weekend, American
lifestyle magazine, Vanity Fair ran a report in which it listed Alakija
as one of the apartment owners in the 6,000 pounds-per-square-feet One
Hyde Park.
The
report is the outcome of a six-month long investigation by Zurich-based
investigative reporter and expert on tax havens, Nicholas Shaxson.
Other
apartment owners in the upmarket One Hyde Park include owner of
Ukranian football club, Shaktar Donesk, Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s
richest man and One Hyde Park’s wealthiest, whose property is valued at
$215.9 million. Next to Akhmetov is Nigeria’s Alakija.
According
to the magazine, the five apartments owned by Alakija’s Rose of Sharon
4, a company registered in the Isle of Man, were bought at a combined
fee of $123 million (N18.4billion).
The publication noted most of
the apartment owners in the London property have tried to conceal their
identities by using entities based in offshore tax havens to buy their
homes.
Alakija’s Rose of Sharon 4, for instance, was said to have
been set up in 2010 with five company directors from the Isle of Man,
and with “two almost identically-sounding entities listed as
shareholders: Barclaytrust International Nominees (Isle of Man) Ltd and
Barclaytrust (Nominees) Isle of Man Ltd,” according to Sunday Times,
which quoted the Vanity Fair report.
Alakija, who Forbes rated
‘world’s richest black woman’ last year, is believed to worth a combined
$3.3 billion, according to Ventures Africa, a business magazine.
A self-made billionairess and business tycoon, Alakija’s business interests span oil, printing and fashion.
Alakija
sits atop The Rose of Sharon Group which comprises The Rose of Sharon
Prints & Promotions Limited and Digital Reality Prints Limited; and
she is the Executive Vice Chairman of Famfa Oil Limited, which is into
oil exploration.
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