Why Is Charles so fond of unsavoury ‘billionaires?’
WHAT is it about rich men and the Prince of Wales? Despite endless criticism — even from his own father — for accepting millions of pounds worth of largesse from affluent acquaintances, some of whom had distinctly colourful backgrounds, Charles’s appetite for the company and favours of the super wealthy remains undimmed.
From private jets and helicopters to floating gin palaces and Riviera mansions, the prince has exhibited an unerring ability to suspend judgement about their controversial past when it suits him.
But even his most devoted admirers were left shuddering at revelations that he has formed a friendship with James Stunt, the vain and swaggering former son-in-law of motor racing tycoon Bernie Ecclestone.
Yesterday courtiers were evaluating the implications of Stunt’s grandstanding interview with Tatler magazine in which he boasted of the letters he had received from the heir to the throne, some of which he has framed and likes to show off to visitors to his office.
Let us be clear there is no suggestion that Charles has received any cash from Stunt, the 36-year-old godson of Terry Adams, former head of London’s most notorious crime family.
Their relationship is apparently based on Stunt lending artworks from his own collection to appear on the walls of Dumfries House, the £40 million stately home in Ayrshire which Charles saved for the nation.
‘Works from the likes of Velazquez, Monet, van Dyck, Dali, Picasso and Constable — a wide array over a two-year period,’ Stunt told the magazine, adding: ‘ There’s a Chagall went there recently.’
Despite this shared interest in art, the foul-mouthed Stunt seems an unlikely figure even for the Prince of Wales to cultivate.
The man who labelled his fatherin-law ‘ that dwarf Bernie’, his ex mother-in-law as ‘ Lady Macbeth’ and complained that his public image went downhill when he married a ‘C-list celebrity’s daughter’, doesn’t possess the panache of the disgraced oil billionaire Armand Hammer, who bankrolled the prince’s charities for years and loaned him the use of his airliner.
Nor does he have the polished charm of shipping tycoon John Latsis, who was described as a ‘gangster’ in his native Greece but who dazzled Charles with his charm and often put his 400ft yacht Alexander with its Turkish baths, chandeliered ballroom and private cinema at his disposal.
Charles used the yacht at least eight times for holidays with both Diana and Camilla. One jaunt alone in which he took 22 friends, including Camilla and her children, would have cost £500,000 if he’d opened his own chequebook.
On the face of it, Stunt’s generosity with his paintings seems odd considering the prince is heir to the Royal Collection, the biggest private treasure trove of art works in the world. Dumfries house yesterday was sticking to its policy of not identifying owners of donated artwork despite Stunt waiving anonymity in his interview. A spokesman said: ‘The charity’s collection features work by a great variety of artists and changes regularly, and it would be timeconsuming in the extreme to list the artists behind all works ever displayed at Dumfries House.’
So how then did the prince and the shameless Stunt become letter-writing chums? The answer, as in so many of the prince’s relationships, is through the services of indispensable royal retainer Michael Fawcett.
FAWCETT, of course, is the former palace footman who became first valet then personal assistant to the prince and who now runs his own events company, Premier Mode, with Charles as his principal client. It was Michael who organised the wedding party at Windsor Castle when Charles and Camilla married in April, 2005.
Earlier, he had collaborated with Camilla in overseeing the renovations of the Prince’s Scottish retreat, Birkhall, former home of the Queen Mother. He has also been entrusted with overseeing and running Dumfries House. It is in this last role that he has proved vital to the Prince of Wales.
Keeping the Palladian country house which combines the neoclassical architecture of Robert Adam with the furniture of Thomas Chippendale ticking over along with all the prince’s other pet projects, such as his drawing school, requires pots of money.
It is Fawcett who ensures that the lavish entertaining for the rich men and women who support these projects is of the very highest quality. The prince has nothing but praise for Fawcett in his endeavours, and because he has helped raise so much money for charity, views media critics as mean-spirited and petty.
Just how Fawcett and the portly Stunt first met is not clear. But the Mail’s Richard Eden reported last week that the royal factotum had been a guest at Stunt’s home.
An intriguing insight into how the money raising operates comes from a figure who wanted to introduce a possible backer to the prince. The backer, a wealthy foreign national, was prepared to sponsor an event for the prince in return for the kudos of being seen in Charles’s circle. ‘I remember thinking that the Royal Family would deal with anyone provided they had not been convicted of breaking the law,’ recalls the go-between.
‘I had the distinct impression that moral judgements did not come into it at all. It was all about the cash.
‘The only thing he didn’t seem to like were people exploiting a connection with the prince for publicity’s sake. I have to say I thought that was pretty absurd because the number one reason most people give money to royal projects is so that they can boast about it and be seen associating with them.’
In James Stunt’s case it is thought he was invited to a function at St James’s Palace, where Charles was present. The prince is said to have written to him afterwards to express his gratitude at meeting him.
Was this how such a bizarre kinship began? Neither Clarence House nor Dumfries House were prepared to discuss the prince’s relationship with the flamboyant gold trading businessman. But one of the prince’s long standing confidantes is not surprised. ‘Charles is remarkably direct about such matters. His attitude is “what can they do for me?’’ And if the answer is positive then nothing else much matters. He doesn’t consider it poor judgement if he ends up making money for his charities.’
Certainly Dumfries house thrums to the sound of donated money.
To pay for its upkeep, the house can be hired for weddings, banquets and conferences. But in addition, the grounds are now showing tell- tale signs that Charles’s monied friends are riding to the rescue.
There is, for example, the Tamar Manoukian Outdoor Centre, a youth centre named after the wife of Armenian- born property developer Bob Manoukian, who lives in London.
THERE is also the Kuanyshev Craft Skills centre, a sawmill and workshops including a restored derelict waterwheel, that is named after oil tycoon Timur Kuanyshev, who made his fortune in the Klondike melee of Kazakhstan.
He and his wife Alfiya were once stopped at Moscow airport and found to be carrying $1 million in cash stuffed in their underwear. They were not prosecuted.
A newer attraction has been the maze, a construction of 200 yew bushes paid for by Barbara Allbritton, widow of philanthropist Joe Allbritton who was head of Riggs Bank when it was embroiled in a money laundering scandal.
Allbritton, who was a guest at Prince William’s wedding, bankrolled the prince’s Duchy Originals brand and lent Charles a jet to fly to Washington to meet President Obama in 2011.
There was no wedding invitation for John Latsis who died in 2003. He got out of the relationship what all sycophantic billionaires get out of sucking up to royalty. He was puffed up with glee and pride that other rich Greeks envied his closeness to British royalty.
He adored the fact that Charles and Diana’s 1992 cruise on the Alexander was described as a ‘second honeymoon’, little knowing that months later they would have parted.
Thanks to his yacht, Latsis, who had been born in poverty, believed he was being written into the history of the royal saga.
He also believed that apparent ‘approval’ from the heir to the British throne bought him business and political leverage which allowed him to make even more money. In 1999 Prince Philip angrily warned his son not to accept so much from a man like Latsis. Charles took little notice.
Then there was Armand Hammer, often described as the most corrupt tycoon of modern times. The disgraced U. S. oil billionaire, exposed after he died in 1990 aged 92 as having spied for Russia, bankrolled Charles’s favourite causes with upwards of £40 million.
He also loaned him the use of his luxuriously appointed Boeing 727, which led to handwritten letters of unctuous gratitude from the prince.
‘My Dear Mr Hammer,’ he wrote to the billionaire after he and Princess Diana were flown home
from America at the end of a royal tour. ‘I have so many things to thank you for that I hardly know where to begin. Your kindness in letting us fly back in your 727 was enormously appreciated and I am now thoroughly spoiled for any other form of flying.’
The letters emerged in a biography of Hammer by writer Neil Lyndon who had worked for the magnate.
At the time, some unsettled courtiers cringed at what they saw as a coded request to keep the free flights coming. ‘The prince appears to be entirely devoid of embarrassment,’ one said.
Another rich benefactor, Turkish telecoms entrepreneur Cem uzan lavished more than £400,000 on Charles’s pet projects after dining with the prince at Highgrove and at Buckingham Palace, his wife sitting next to the prince. Soon afterwards he declined to set foot in Britain because of a 15-month prison sentence imposed on him by a High Court judge over his non-appearance at a court-ordered examination by lawyers looking into $2 billion fraud allegations.
Manuel Colonques, boss of Spanish tiling company Porcelanosa, has also enjoyed Charles’s patronage after picking up the £100,000 bill for the prince’s ‘Islamic Garden’, which won a silver at the Chelsea Flower Show, as well as financing events in royal palaces.
As a mark of his gratitude, Senor Colonques was on the guest list for Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton in 2011.
Another figure close to the prince was his polo - playing friend urs Schwarzenbach, a Swiss billionaire financier who put Prince Harry up in Australia during his gap year. Last year he had his £40 million art collection seized by the Swiss authorities in a row over unpaid tax.
Mr Schwarzenbach built his fortune trading currency and lives at Culham Court, a 650-acre estate on the Thames near Henley, Oxfordshire, which he bought in 2006 for £35 million.
His wife, Francesca, a former Miss Australia, is godmother to Lady Louise Windsor, the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Wessex.
Charles quite rightly will argue that his friends’ difficulties are not his. But his choice of friends most certainly is.
And making friends with James Stunt certainly opens himself up to difficult questions.