Revealed: Foreign firms that own slice of region
ALMOST 800 firms registered outside the UK own 2,300 buildings and plots of land across the West Midlands.
The details can be disclosed after the Land Registry made details of all foreign-owned land in England and Wales fully public for the first time.
It shows a total of 791 firms registered outside the UK own 2,304 plots and buildings across the region.
They include multi-million pound landmarks like Building One in Birmingham’s Colmore Row, 33 Bull Street and the Castle Vale Shopping Centre.
Some 655 of the 2,304 properties and plots are owned – either freehold or leasehold – by companies registered in Jersey.
A further 260 are owned by com- panies incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, 217 by companies in the Isle of Man, 214 by companies in Guernsey and 191 by companies in Mauritius.
There is no suggestion a firm incorporated outside the UK should not own property here, or that any of the individual firms involved have done anything wrong.
However, Labour is currently calling for the government to close an alleged loophole that means foreignbased companies do not have to pay tax on profits from sales of commercial real estate – while British-registered companies do.
The Land Registry documents include both residential and corporate holdings, and do not differentiate between the two.
The register reveals that the eign-incorporated firm with most properties and plots in forthe the West Midlands is a company called Wallace Properties, registered in Mauritius.
The company owns 187 plots and properties across the region. Its portfolio includes a substantial number of properties in a number of streets in Sandwell, Birmingham and Dudley.
Second is Salcon Power (HK) , incorporated in Hong Kong. The firm is one of a number operating in the UK which leases no properties itself, but the air-space above houses.
Technically the air-space above a home or commercial building is sold along with the property itself.
That means firms can lease or buy air-space – sometimes in return for providing solar panels – as an investment in itself.
Triward Holdings, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, has 82 plots and properties listed, mainly apartments in the Orion Building, in Navigation Street, and store rooms in Essex Street.
Other foreign-incorporated firms with significant numbers of properties in the region include Newriver Trustee 7, incorporated in Jersey.
The company is listed as owning the freehold on a number of pubs in Dudley, Walsall, Wolverhampton and Sandwell.
They include The Round of Beef and The Maypole in Halesowen, the Travellers Rest in Bilston, the New Inn in Rowley Regis, The King’s Head on Ingram Road in Walsall, the Stags Head in Penn, the Bridge Inn in Kingswinford and the Wonder Public House in Tividale.
Nationally, there are 98,581 foreign-owned plots and properties – with 22,832 owned by firms incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.