Businesswoman behind £7bn cannabis farm struck off over Scottish land deal
An executive seeking investors for Europe’s largest medical cannabis facility was struck off for her role in a land deal linked to Scotland’s biggest fraud probe, we reveal today.
The chief executive of a company seeking investors for Europe’s biggest medical cannabis farm was once struck off for her part in a £ 6 million Scottish land sale.
Minette Compson was barred from working in Gibraltar’s financial services industry following an investigation into the deal near Glasgow.
Ms Compson, who was also the corporate governance director of an investment firm before it crashed owing £ 42m, and her Scots business partner Paul Segal have set up Symtomax Group, which says it intends to build Europe’s biggest outdoor medical cannabis farm in Portugal.
The company says it wants to invest 30m over the next five years to become Europe’s biggest suppliers and is promising a 30% return for investors in just two years. But, while the company’s website boasts of the expertise of its staff and the quality of the organic cannabis oil it will produce, it has yet to receive a cultivation licence from the Portuguese regulator, Infarmed.
Ms Compson, who now calls herself by her maiden name Minette Coetzee, is the chief executive of Symtomax but was struck off for her role in a controversial land sale north of Glasgow.
The Kirkintilloch land, a 36- acre plot, had previously been refused planning permission because it was classed as greenbelt and had a risk of flooding.
It was then bought by a company belonging to lawyer Gregory King – whose investment firm was at the centre of one of Scotland’s biggest fraud probes – for £ 305,000 before being sold for £ 6m to Gibraltarbased Advalorem Value Asset Fund – a firm controlled by Ms Compson – using money raised from pension funds. Court papers show South African- born Ms Compson and her husband received a £ 64,000 commission payment, via a company she had set up in the British Virgin Islands, from Advalorem. When it emerged the site had been overvalued, Ms Compson, 48, was investigated by Gibraltar’s Financial Services Commission.
As a result, in 2014 she was barred from working as a director in that country’s financial services industry.
The FSC ruling said she had failed to act with “due skill, care and diligence” in the land purchase and had “failed to ensure Advalorem was being operated in a manner that was not detrimental to the interests of its participants or potential participants”.
The watchdog’s chief executive, Samantha Barras, added that Ms Compson had provided the FSC with “false and misleading information in respect of the basis upon which property valuations had been sought and obtained by Advalorem”.
The FSC said she was being barred “for the protection of investors, of the public and the reputation of Gibraltar as a financial centre”.
Ms Compson appealed against the ruling, but it was upheld by the Supreme Court of Gibraltar.
She, other Advalorem directors andmrkingwerelatersuedfor£6.5m by Advalorum’s administrators.
Ms Compson then took up a role with investment group Privilege Wealth, first as a director and then being promoted to governance and compliance director. In 2017 one of the key figures in Privilege Wealth survived an assassination attempt in Panama. In March 2018, Privilege Wealth collapsed, owing £42m to creditors.
Administrators found millions of pounds had been poured into a payday loans business operated by the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota.
Mscompson’scannabiscultivation company has registered in a number of countries, including Scotland. The