RIDDLE OF THE RUINS
This mansion burned down and its troubled owner drowned in a lake. That much is fact. But who set the fire? Was it REALLY suicide? And who’s the new mystery man on CCTV?
IT IS a case of tragedy heaped upon disaster. And on the face of it at least, the evidence appears to point in only one direction.
When it emerged last week that the body of Michael Treichl had been recovered from Lake Geneva, it was easy to conclude that the millionaire fund manager had been so overwhelmed, he had taken his own life.
Treichl, 69, had been arrested and questioned by police two months ago after his Grade I-listed family home, the 500-yearold Parnham House in Dorset, which he spent a rumoured £10 million restoring, burned to the ground in a devastating fire.
Yet nothing is entirely as it seems. News of his arrest was met with bafflement by those who knew him. As he said to The Mail on Sunday at the time, it would be ‘insane’ to set fire to his life’s work. Now we can reveal that Treichl’s Austrian relatives do not accept his death was suicide. And with every day that passes since his death, the questions grow. Some relate to the state of Treichl’s own financial affairs, which some City figures suggest were suffering. Equally curious are sinister claims that Treichl had made some determined enemies through his financial dealings in the notoriously murky global mining industry.
And who is the mysterious figure on CCTV seen buying a ruck- sack that was later found at the scene of the blaze?
On top of all this, Treichl had no nautical expertise, so what was he doing in a boat on a Swiss lake before he died. And while his family admitted following his death that Treichl suffered from ‘severe depression’, there were plans for shooting parties and a trip to Paris with his wife.
Certainly it is hard to link Treichl to significant money worries or, for that matter, instability.
He came from one of the most well-established banking families in Austria, who once advised t he Hapsburg emperors. His grandfather was a banker who married an aristocrat, Baroness von Ferstel. Her Jewish ancestry meant she was as forced to undergo a crude skull examination by the Nazi authorities. Fortunately, the Treichls were declared ‘Aryanised’.
Michael Treichl, born in 1948, was educated at Eton and Harvard, and worked for Merrill Lynch in America before being recruited by British bank SG Warburg. At the time of his death, he was a leading light in the London- based hedge fund d Audley Capital Advisers LLP.
His family life, too, appeared happy y and successful. Married to formerr Vogue model Emma, there were theirr two children and two children from m Emma’s previous marriage. They y enjoyed a seemingly gilded life of ten-nnis parties and polo games.
What, then, or who could drive the he wealthy financier to his death? Who ho burned down Parnham? And what at did the police believe until the onlyy suspect in the case was found float-ting in Lake Geneva?
Here we examine the key questionsns in a quite extraordinary case…
Why were the horses out of the stable?
THE crippling fire that left Parnham House in ruins broke out in the early hours of Easter Saturday. A milkman doing his rounds noticed flames licking up the building and raised the alarm around 4am. But it took until the following Wednesday for the fire brigade to finally put it out.
The house had been equipped with sophisticated fire safety systems which should have alerted the authorities to the blaze at an earlier stage. A laser-movement alarm system and state- of- the- art fire detection and sprinkler system installed in the property was linked directly through to the Dorset Fire Service, a source told this newspaper.
But neither system raised the alarm – and both are thought to have been switched off on the night of the fire.
Staff who would normally have been living in the house – including a full-time butler and chef – were away that night for the Easter weekend and the family were staying elsewhere: Treichl at Claridge’s, his favourite hotel, his wife and children in the south of France.
According to another source there are unanswered questions over why the family’s thoroughbred horses, which were normally stabled overnight, had been put out to grass.
Was a hoard of silver evidence of arson?
INVESTIGATIONS following the fire by forensic fire officers are thought to have identified at least six ignition points, suggesting an arson attack, according to l ocal fire brigade sources. A fireman at the scene told The Mail on Sunday that a hoard of silver antiques and other valuables was found piled outside an entrance of the house after the fire, as if they had been deliberately spared. And a can carrying as much as five gallons of fuel was thought to have been discarded on the manicured lawn.
Who was the mystery man on CCTV?
MICHAEL Treichl – who told police he was staying at Claridge’s on the night of the blaze – was the only person arrested in connection with the case, on suspicion of arson. He was later released under police investigation. Other details concerning the case have been scant.
But last night, local sources told this newspaper that Dorset Police are looking into CCTV images of a man purchasing a rucksack which
was later found discarded outside Parnham House following the fire.
It was bought from a branch of Mountain Warehouse in Bridport, a town five miles away from the property. The same person was then caught on camera getting into a car believed to have been registered at the 16th-Century home.
One close family friend told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Nothing adds up. Even if you believe Michael might have been responsible for the fire you have to ask how he could have got from Claridge’s in London down to Dorset and then back up to London in time to take the call informing him of the fire.
‘He was certainly deeply depressed but his wife said that she was 100 per cent behind him and if they have to live in a hotel until the house is repaired then so be it. So there is no family split.’
Who would want to hurt Michael Treichl?
SOME close family friends believe the fire could have been a warning to Treichl. For hugely respectable as he was, the world he moved in was not without its risks.
Not only was he routinely handling deals worth millions of pounds, but he had focused on the mining sector – notorious for some rough-hewn characters. Treichl’s business partner, Julian Treger, had an aggressive business reputation, once saying: ‘You have to have had kills. You need to take people down. Barking is not good enough.’
One deal alone was reported to have netted his hedge fund Audley £ 243 million when they brokered the sale of Canadian firm Western Coal to US mining giant Walter Energy.
At least one high-profile London figure, who did not want to be named, said there was no doubt that Treichl had crossed many people. At one point, for example, Audley was accused of taking part in a ‘ pump and dump’ scheme to manipulate the share price of Walter Energy. These claims were subsequently dismissed.
The source, a London businessman, said the controversy was not surprising. He said: ‘Michael Treichl was very bright but he did not apply that intelligence in always the most productive manner.
‘I had a business agreement with him but he then discovered a loophole to get around that agreement. This is something he did many times with lots of different people.
‘That is probably why he had a lot of enemies.’ When asked if Treichl was devious, the businessman said: ‘Yes. He had a reputation for behaving in a certain manner socially. He was liked. But in business it was different. He spent most of the time recently developing his estate rather than focusing on business.’
Serious losses – but was Treichl struggling?
MICHAEL Treichl appeared to be a rich man, but in the world of high finance and hedge funds where hundreds of millions of pounds remain offshore, what you see is rarely what you get.
And with huge living costs, it’s clear Treichl had precious little room for manoeuvre.
He reportedly bought Parnham House for £ 4 million and had ploughed a reported £ 10 million more into its restoration, as well as investing in an extraordinary art and antiques collection.
He owned a fleet of luxury cars, took frequent helicopter flights and paid for his wife’s polo empire.
But the last set of accounts for Audley, which came out in May, showed only a modest profit of £ 273,961. Treichl also owed the company £118,685. The accounts add that the company is in effect being kept afloat by a trust, in which Treichl’s partner Tregel ‘has an interest’. The company posted an £ 811,528 loss in 2015, which again saw the partners inject £952,333 in order to keep the company afloat. When the firm was set up in 2005 it reportedly had £200 million at its disposal.
Land Registry records show Treichl took out a mortgage on Parnham with Royal bank Coutts & Co in 2014 – having bought the house 13 years earlier.
These are figures that are publicly available. Treichl’s offshore finances are yet to come to light, and rumours originating in Austria suggest he had lost badly by betting on the markets plummeting in the wake of Brexit.
This is hardly a reason to burn down Parnham House, but might help explain his depression.
Why did the dead man mess about with a boat?
ALTHOUGH we know Treichl’s body was found in the vast waters of Lake Geneva, the details surrounding the circumstances of his death remain unclear.
But a spokesman for Geneva Police has told an Austrian magazine that prosecutors have ordered an autopsy to establish the precise cause of death. One former colleague was told he had died with a rope and weights around his body.
In a further twist, an Austrian magazine, Trend, has reported Treichl’s extended family say Treichl had ostensibly travelled from Austria to Geneva for business and not to end his life.
One friend, speaking to The Mail on Sunday, said: ‘What I would ask is this: Michael knew very little about boats so how is he going to go out into the middle of Lake Geneva and tie weights around his neck? It does not add up.’
Depressed or not, Michael Treichl had been planning a grouse shooting party in the autumn. And he is said to have been planning a trip to Paris with wife, Emma who had told friends that the pair were looking forward to restoring the house.
What happens now?
IT IS understood that police will continue to investigate the fire and what appears to be a major crime. And insurers will certainly keep a keen eye on the outcome. For Treichl’s family, the answers cannot come soon enough.