Dubai ruler and Russian oligarchs among recipients of £7m EU subsidies
Martyn Mclaughlin looks at some of Scotland’s wealthiest beneficiaries of the Common Agricultural Policy
Some of Scotland’s wealthiest foreign landowners, including the billionaire ruler of Dubai, Russian oligarchs and the country’s biggest private landowner, have received nearly £7 million in EU subsidies since 2016, with millions of pounds being paid to sprawling estates ultimately owned by firms as far afield as the British Virgin Islands and Luxembourg.
An analysis by The Scotsman of recipients of EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payments found that several of the nation’s richest and most controversial landowners use vehicles in both offshore and onshore low tax jurisdictions as ownership vehicles for their Scottish interests, all the while staking claims to significant amounts of EU public money.
One leading land reform expert and academic said the scale of the payments underlined the need for a public interest test for prospective owners of large estates, and argued that those landowners who register their holdings in tax havens should no longer receive public funding.
Scottish Land& Estates, which represents estate owners across Scotland, said foreign landowners are among the“strongest investors” in local communities
It comes after The Scotsman revealed how MPs, MSPs, peers, and councill ors across the nation have recouped nearly £6m via the CAP scheme. Today, we also report that a company controlled byJKR owl ing, one of Scotland’ s rich est women, received more than three quarters of a million pounds in agricultural subsidies last year.
Amid concerns in some quarters over the impact of concentrated land ownership on local communities, some of the country’ s wealthiest foreign landowners have also received significant sums via their corporate holdings.
A firm co-owned by the son of Mahdi Al Tajir, the Highland Spring owner, was one of the largest recipients of subsidies between 2016 and 2019.
Records held by the UK Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) show it received £2,749,108, with more than £1.1m paid in 2018 alone.
The Perthshire-based company in question, Highland Wag yu, is one of the largest producers of the world's most expensive beef. It is owned by 54-year-old Mohsin Mohammed Mahdi Al-tajir and his wife, Martine.
It is based on a 25,000 -acre firm on Mahdi Al Tajir’s Blackford Farms estate, which is owned by Perth shire 2499 Limited, a firm which counts Moshin among its directors. The latest accounts for Perthshire 2499 state that its ultimate parent company is Ciara Investments Group, based in the British Virgin Islands.
Highland Wag yu, which is registered in the UK, has two shareholders – Moshin AlTajir and his wife, Mar tine. The latter, who is also a director of the firm, declined to comment.
Smech Management Company Limited, a firm controlled by the billionaire ruler of Dubai and which is ultimately held by an offshore entity, received £261,663 in subsidies over the same period.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-maktoum’s sprawling landholdings in the Highlands extend to around 63,000 acres. Earlier this month, the 72-year-old secured planning permission to build a vast lodge on his Inverinate estate, despite dozens of objections from local residents.
The office of the sheikh, who is also the vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, is listed as having “significant control” of Smech, according to Companies House filings.
Its latest accounts state that its ultimate holding company is Mandataire Limited, a firm incorporated in the Channel Island of Jersey. Paul Clarke, Smech’s company secretary, did not respond to enquiries.
Elsewhere, two Russian billionaires with landholdings in Scotland received more than £1.3m of subsidies.
The 22,000 Tulchan estate, home to what is billed as “the most private of private members clubs,” obtained £678,478.
The Grantown-on-spey estate, regarded as one of Scotland’s finest, was bought three years ago by Yuri Shefler, a Russian billionaire.
Companies House records show that its corporate entity, Tulchan Sporting Estates Limited – the firm which was paid the CAP subsidies – is wholly owned by a firm called SF Scottish Properties Limited, which is registered in the tax haven of Guernsey.
The estate confirmed in March 2017 that the company overseeing the landholdings had been bought by a firm “for the principal benefit” of Mr Shefler. The same price was reportedly £25m. It was previously owned by the Litchfield family.
Mr Shefl er ,53, amassed his for tune through the SPI Group, the firm behind wellknown alcoholic drinks. He has been involved in a longrunning battle with the Kremlin over the rights to the lucrative Stolichnaya vodka brand. Tulchan estate did not respond to enquiries.
Another estate owned by one of Russia’s richest families received even more via the EU initiative.
DEFRA records show the
Edinburgh-registered firm Aberuchill Management Limited recouped £682,896.
Aberuchill Castle estate, set a midst 3,300 acres of land near Comrie, was bought by the steel tycoon, Vladimir Li sin–who is wor th£15bn, according to Bloomberg – for a reported £6.8 min 2005.
The purchase was made via a firm called For set borne Limited, which according to the offshore leaks database, maintained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, is registered in Cyprus.
However, filings with Companies House show that 289,400 shares in Aberuchill Management Limited are now owned by a private asset management company called La Generale D’investissement Et De Gestion SA SPF, based in Luxembourg.
The records also include a confirmation statement filed in 2016, which lists another member of the Lisin family, 36-year-old Youri, as a person with “significant control” of Aberuchill.
Andrew Castle, a director of Aberuchill Management and a spokesman for the estate, said: “We are a mixed farming
business registered in the UK and all income, including agricultural support, forms part of the estate accounts and is subject to UK tax.
“Agricultural support helps maintain jobs on the estate and helps support local employment through purchasing feeds, fuel, machinery, and tradesmen.”
Maria Simon ova, a spokeswoman for Novolipetsk, the Lipetsk-based steel firm where Vladimir Lisin is chairman, told The Scots man: “The Aberuchill owners for their part continue to support the environment restoration, reconstruction of historical buildings, locals employment, and livestock development.”
Meanwhile, an estate owned by Anders Holch Povlsen, the country’s largest private landowner, received £2,491,144 in CAP payments.
More than half of that – some £1,452,658 – was paid last year alone to Glenfeshie, a 45,000 acre estate in the Highlands. The estate is owned by the Danish billionaire’s Wildland firm. Both it and Glenfeshie’s corporate entity are registered in the UK, and Mr Povlsen pays tax personally both in the UK and his homeland.
It is among 225,000 acres of land owned by Mr Povlsen, who has outlined plans for a 200 year-long ‘rewilding’ initiative across swaths of northern Scotland.
Tim Kirkwood, chief executive officer of Wildland, said the CAP payments helped support a change to low intensity and extensive active farming, and establish new native woodland. He explained that Mr Povlsen’s firm was subject to “strict scrutiny” during the CAP application process, and pointed out that Wild land, in partnership with Forestry and Land Scotland, had “delivered a very significant proportion of the Cairngorm National Park Authority’s woodland establishment target over the last five years and aims to continue to do so.”
Dr Jim Hunter, emeritus professor of history at the University of the Highlands and Islands, and a leading writer and researcher on land ownership in Scotland, told The Scots man that legislative action was required to ensure that estate owners use public funds to serve their local communities.
He explained: “These findings underline the need for estate owners to be subject to a public interest test of the sort already and rightly applied to actual or prospective community purchasers of land – who can’t get access to public funds to assist with land purchase and related matters until they’ve demonstrated that the cash in question will be spent in ways that serve wider public interests.” Dr Hunter, a former chairman of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, added: “It’s my own view that, in instances where such landowners are registering their holdings in tax havens or using other devices to avoid or minimise their tax obligations to the wider society of which they’re part, they should cease to be eligible for public funding of any kind.”
A spokesman for Scottish Land & Estates said: “All CAP payments are only made to businesses that are actively engaged in farming and are audited in clearly defined procedures set by the Scottish Government and European Commission. Put simply, farming operations receive these payments for farming and all business carried out