Ownership and Links To Russia
In December 2002 Gaumur Holding acquired a 30.97% stake in Baugur Group.
Luxembourg-registered Gaumur Holding was originally Compagnie Financiere pour l'Atlantique du Nord. The company was registered on June 22, 1998. In March 2000 changed its name to Gaumur Holding.
Official records show that Gaumur Group had three shareholders:
- Starbook International Limited (P.O. Box 3186 Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands)
- Waverton Group Limited (P.O. Box 3186 Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands)
- Birefield Holdings Limited (P.O. Box 3186 Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands)
In 2005 Danish media reported that behind Starbook, Waverton and Birefield is Shapburg Limited (registered in the same mailbox 3186) and Quenon Investments Limited (registered in the same mailbox 3186). It was discovered that:
- Both companies owned a stake in Baugur Group.
- Both companies owned a stake in the Luxembourg-registered Compagnie Financiere Scandinave. A month after incorporation it was renamed the Scandinavian Holding and later Meidur S.A. (later Exista).
- Both companies owned a stake in Alrosa Finance in Luxembourg. Another shareholder was Russian state-owned diamond company ALROSA.
- Shapburg Limited owned a stake in Alfa Finance Holdings. Another shareholder was Alfa Bank of Russia.
Icelandic businessmen Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, Björgólfur Guðmundsson and Magnús Þorsteinsson all came to London from Saint Petersburg, Russia where they did business in the beverage sector together.
Read more about this topic: Baugur Group
Famous quotes containing the words ownership, links and/or russia:
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“Today’s difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.”
—Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990)