Discount firm’s tax secret

BRITAIN’S fastest-growing discount chain is a serial user of tax havens, it has been revealed.

B&M Bargains has paid £15 .6million in dividends to a holding company in low-tax Luxembourg over the past three years.

And the firm’s chairman, Sir Terry Leahy, holds his stake through a US fund registered in the Cayman Islands. After the huge pay- ment, the holding company paid £148million to shareholders in just one year.

Some of the cash went to Luxembourg-based SSA Investments, which holds almost 1 per cent of B&M’s shares. SSA is owned by B&M’s owners Simon and Bobby Arora. A spokesman said B&M was based in Luxembourg because of its pan-European operations. City – Page 68