'King Khadem' And His Sovereign Wealth! - IN DEPTH INVESTIGATION
26 Sep 2015
(Reproduced with permission)
Khadem’s pad has hot water issues!
The most expensive mansion in
Beverley Hills (reputedly) glitters with glass atop a cascading
hillside of manicured terraced lawns – its projected price tag is around
US$45 million plus.
According to court depositions, however, a recent Arab guest at the
property was unimpressed by a temporary lack of hot water in the Palumbo
designed futurist fantasy, which has sparked a revealing row about its ownership.
When the house changed hands last year (following a total rebuild by
top designer Michael Palumbo) the cash buyer was announced to have been a
British born ‘nightclub mogul’ named Neil Moffitt. However, this was
questioned.
Neil Moffitt – genuine mogul or just a front for Walker Tower penthouse buy?
Commentators at the time referred to raised eyebrows that even a man with the reported income of Mr Moffitt (it had just been announced he had sold his company Angel Management to the Hakkasan nightclub chain for some US$100 million) could have afforded such an expensive property.
After all, this was pretty much at the same time as he was also being
identified as the buyer of yet another record breaking purchase, a US$50 million penthouse flat (now up for re-sale for US$70 million) in the Walker Building in New York.
Priciest purchase ever in just 5 minutes – was it Moffitt or was it Khadem?
So was he the real buyer?
Moffitt, according to our researches, has had a checkered career as
an ‘impresario’, since starting out as a bar owner in his native
Stratford upon Avon before gravitating to Las Vegas.
In 2009 he was broke, say insiders, following the closure of the Vegas club he was managing by the name of ICE.
He was forced to sell up his dance music company by the name of Godskitchen, in order to fund a divorce from his British wife.
But, some point in the following year he struck a lucrative encounter with a man of apparent enormous means, whose obsession with nightclubs had seen him perhaps inevitably gravitate to Moffitt’s current corner of the globe.
This was Khadem al Qubaisi, who was soon to also link up with Malaysia’s most controversial businessman Jho Low both in business and on the nightclub scene:
“Moffitt was like a lousy shark hanging around looking for rich fools and both Khadem and Jho Low floated in around the same time – Moffitt netted them both and the rest is history” was how one Vegas insider observed the situation to Sarawak Report.
“All the stories about KAQ [Khadem Al Qubaisi] not being happy he did not get the table he wanted in Wynns is a load of rubbish, simply Moffitt used his usual gift of trying to find money explaining Vegas could be taken. KAQ jumped at the opportunity and today we see why” .
Subtle? – promoting Hakkasan, Al Qubaisi’s instant US nightclub phenomenon….. girls and bits of girls
Referring to Jho Low’s own arrival on the Las Vegas nightclub scene sometime later in 2010 the same observer reflects:
“Did Moffitt introduce KAQ to Low? I would bet 99% on this, as Moffitt liked to play the matchmaker and the more wealthy people he knew made himself look bigger. KAQ and Low like the girls and everything around it, Moffitt had seen the weakness in KAQ and pushed him into having his own clubs. KAQ was a sort of very rich nobody in Las Vegas until Moffitt promoted him through Hakkasan – then the girls were non stop. Low same thing as KAQ – ugly but with deep pockets – they are now like the three best friends on the planet.”
Manager Moffitt – but where did the money come from?
This is an account that contrasts with the stellar trajectory now being presented to the press to explain Moffitt’s sudden big bang arrival as a top player in the US entertainment scene.
However, it provides a compelling explanation for Moffitt’s sudden transformation into one of the biggest investors in America.
With respect to the Beverley Hills mansion, it is the designer
Michael Palumbo himself who has cemented allegations that the real buyer
of 1201 Laurel Way was indeed Khadem Al Qubaisi, the ex-Abu Dhabi
sovereign wealth fund manager and Moffitt’s later Hakkasan, confirming
him as the source of the mega-money behind Moffitt.
Al Qubaisi’s sober Abu Dhabi image gets shed in Vegas and San Tropez – where his parties with pal Jho Low have become legendary.
The papers submitted in Palumbo’s court case against Moffitt, which is due to be heard in the California Central District Court early
in October, provide some fascinating insights into the relationship
between Moffitt and ‘KAQ’ and also into Al Qubaisi’s perceived level of
wealth.
Khadem, after all, was only a salaried official at Aabar and IPIC,
the wealth funds from which he was sacked earlier this year, which
raises considerable questions as to how he himself became so
phenomenally rich.
According to Palumbo’s court deposition, the Arab guest who had
suffered the disturbing episode without hot water at 1201 Laurel Way,
was a fellow by the name of Darwish, described as Khadem al Qubaisi’s
brother.
The matter had apparently filled Mr Al Qubaisi with shame, given the huge expense of the property:
“Mike, [wrote Moffitt in February 2015]…. As you know KAQ was very annoyed at the ongoing situation at 1201 Laurel Way .. on a recent visit from his brother there were many issues with the property not limited to a land slip and lack of water, which led to a very embarrassing situation for both he and I when his brother returned to Abu Dhabi. Clearly this was not what was expected when purchasing a 31 Million Dollar property… As I stated to you KAQ became so disenchanted by the combination of circumstances he no longer wanted his company to be involved in this project or with your future development efforts” [letter cited in the current fraud case against Moffitt relating to a second property, 1169 Hillcrest, Beverley Hills.]
According to Palumbo, Moffitt used this incident as an excuse to
break an agreement over a later separate development, in order to wrest
control of a multi-million dollar property (1169 Hillcrest) from the
designer, who is now prosecuting him for fraud.
Palumbo’s deposition describes Moffitt as:
“.. a wealthy British-born businessman and Chief Executive Officer of the Hakkasan Group. Upon information and belief, Moffitt acts as an agent and/or intermediary in the United States for certain wealthy Arab investors, including Khadem Al Qubaisi, Chairman of the Hakkasan Group…. Moffitt told Palumbo that if he partnered with ‘His Excellency’ [Khadem al Qubaisi] who has an estimated net worth of billions, Palumbo would “never need to look for money again”
It appears therefore that the money behind Moffitt is established as being Al Qubaisi’s in this case.
Jho Low – Third man in the billionaire party line up with Khadem and Moffit
Likewise with the purchase of the Walker Tower Penthouse, where Sarawak Report has already previously identified Al Qubaisi as the actual buyer.
Documents examined by us reveal that the transaction was negotiated
through Khadem Al Qubaisi’s Luxembourg bank manager Marc Abroisien of
Edmond de Rothschild Banque Privee, on behalf of an off-shore vehicle
named Vasco Investment Services S.A., which is owned by KAQ and based in
the British Virgin Islands.
The law firm which negotiated the penthouse purchase was New York’s
Greenberg Traurig, which holds several connections with both Al Qubaisi
and Jho Low’s various business ventures and other interests.
No wonder real estate agents were left gasping after Moffitt agreed
to sign on the deal after a five minute visit – he was just the front.
Khadem’s application to the Tower Block owners as purchaser of the penthouse property
Sovereign wealth?
However, the profile of Mr Al Qubaisi as some form of royal ‘His
Excellency’ from the Emirates worth billions of dollars is also
troubling, given his actual status in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Sacked from Abu Dhabi’s wealth funds, but several parallel private businesses remain – eg Nural Island Abu Dhabi
He is in fact a commoner and was a salaried official working in very
senior positions in the International Petroleum Investment Company,
Aabar and their various subsidiaries.
Aabar lost billions under Al Qubaisi’s management, experiencing a
drop in its base capital from over US$70 billion to under US$15 billion
in that period, which hardly suggests special bonuses on performance.
Yet, Mr Al Qubaisi nevertheless clearly numbers amongst the global
super-rich, as evidenced by his personal property purchases and
ostentatious spending.
He has also been pouring hundreds of millions into private
businesses, which continue to operate separately from Aabar and IPIC,
from which he has now been sacked.
In the United States these businesses number most notably the company
Tamaseem Real Estate Limited (Abu Dhabi) which directly owns the
nightclub and restaurant chain Hakkasan, of which Al Qubaisi is
Chairman.
Wow Hakkasan!
Hakkasan’s expenditures and expansion over the past two years have
taken the entertainment industry by storm and turned into fast moving
global phenomenon, with Neil Moffitt at the helm as Chief Executive and
PR front man.
Moffitt presides (with familiar taste) at the opening of Hakkasan’s Las Vegas club in 2013 –
the most ‘expensive club ever built’
The level of investment and expansion has been nothing short of
seismic, projecting Mr Moffitt into the front line of the US
entertainment industry’s line up of ‘power players‘.
“After
making his fortune revamping distressed assets in the U.K. food and
beverage industry
in the 1990s, music and nightlife entrepreneur Neil
Moffitt tore his way through Europe’s
electronic music scene with his
Godskitchen superclub brand, producing sold-out dance events in
the U.K.
and Ibiza, and launching the popular Global Gathering festival. Now,
he’s settling in Las
Vegas to try his hand at U.S. nightlife through his
Angel Management Group..” [Rolling Stone
magazine]
Over the past three years Moffitt as the Chief Executive of Hakkasan has rolled out an astonishing series
of bars and restaurants world wide. The Chairman of the enterprise and
also Chairman of its registered owner Tasameem Real Estate LLC has been
Khadem Al Qubaisi.
Moffitt’s former ‘Bar M’ in Stratford, now closed
The sums involved been phenomenal, with the Hakkasan nightclub opened
on the re-vamped Studio 54 site in Las Vegas in 2013 rated as the most
expensive ever built.
This was followed by a string of Las Vegas venues
including Wet Republic, Stingaree, HQ Nightclub, HQ Beach Club, and
Omnia, which hosted a massive opening event at the original Caesars
Palace venue in January, itself a once favoured haunt of Jho Low.
The investment has continued with clubs in LA and across the world –
Moffitt has declared to newspapers that he plans 15 mega-clubs to open
internationally, causing other nightclub entrepreneurs to whisper that they fear a strategy to put the rest of them out of business.
Omnia – bigger and better by far..
A parallel restaurant chain has also rolled out across the US and beyond and the brand is now extending into a global portfolio of luxury hotels – all mega investments since the crash period of 2010.
And the spending has not been restricted to venues – much of the
gossip around Hakkasan has been on the subject of the eye-popping fees
being paid by the group to its ‘cult’ DJs, whom it alleges are the
terrific draw bringing custom into their clubs.
A record spinner named Calvin Harris, who happens to be an old friend
of Moffitt, has been signed up for a reported $400,000 a night to
perform at the Omnia Club, forming just one of a team of DJs who are
being paid what would appear to be unnecessarily enormous fees for the
skill set involved.
Calvin in action – $400k a night
The names include promoted ‘icons’ such Afrojack, Chuckie, Oliver Heldens, Nicky Romero and Showtek, all paid astonishing sums.
The question on several lips therefore is why is the chain relaxed
about paying so much more than it logically needs to for such services –
in other words who are the shareholders behind the nightclub industry’s
biggest splash in years and why are they so keen on flushing their
money through these clubs?
Tasameem
Moffitt has proved highly non-committal on the matter of who owns the
company which owns Hakkasan and its related businesses. According to
the UK Telegraph:
He is cagey about Hakkasan’s financiers, however. When pressed for details of shareholders or any of the company’s recent fundraising activities, he simply says: “Hakkasan is a private company based out of Abu Dhabi,” although he does say that he has skin in the game himself. “I’m very invested in the business.” [Telegraph Dec 2014]
There is of course the widespread legend about how one of Abu Dhabi’s
royal figures Sheikh Mansour (owner of Man City) enjoyed a Chinese meal
at the original Hakkasan restaurant in London’s fashionable
Knightsbridge and promptly bought out the restaurant and launched the brand.
Owner of Man City – is Mansour (front left) also behind Hakkasan?
Mansour was Khaddem’s boss as the Chairman of the International
Petroleum Investment Fund and is popularly understood to have been the
big money behind parallel private enterprises also headed by Al Qubaisi.
However, Chinese cuisine in Knightsbridge is one thing. The bare
flesh, booze and bawdiness of the nightclub scene in the world’s
premiere gambling capital Las Vegas is quite another.
Has a member of Abu Dhabi’s conservative ruling family really sponsored this mass investment in ‘Sin City’ and beyond?
Club scene – Al Qubaisi
Or is Tasameem a more personal enterprise on the part of the club-addicted KAQ, whose double life we revealed shortly before his retirement from the sovereign wealth business earlier this year?
If so, how did Mr Al Qubaisi come to amass so much personal wealth?
Sultan of San Trop
There seems little doubt that much of the conspicuous consumption by KAQ is indeed entirely personal.
Not only are the properties in the US indicative, but our research
has unearthed an extraordinary accumulation of wealth and assets also
across Europe, most particularly in his favoured watering hole in the
South of France, home to the favourite discotheques and yachting marinas
of the super-rich.
Al Qubaisi is a famed fixture of the party scene in the Cote d’Azure
and San Tropez with a string of properties in the region and also
apartments in Paris.
KAQ’s pink Bugatti – personally branded in Cote d’Azure
His fleet of fast cars, including two Bugatti’s emblazoned with his
personal brand of KAQ hang outside his pad at Boulevard Croisette in
Cannes.
Property companies in France, lined up under the names of SCI KAQ 1,
SCI KAQ 2, 3, 4, and 5 also represent his ownership of several high-end
apartments in Av Vaquerie, Av Montaigne, Av Lena, E. Reclus and Val de
Pons in Paris.
Our researches indicate that a number of other companies under his
encompassing VASCO Trust own a Formula One car, a jet, an interest in
one of the world’s larges yachts (Topaz) and various other items of real
estate interests in Spain and elsewhere, all managed by his bankers Edmond de Rothschild, Luxembourg.
Money means power in France
Khadem’s conspicuous wealth in France has given him apparent clout in
the highest circles, according to our information, with rumours of an
influential relationship with the former president and now once again
presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy.
Just last February, before Al Qubaisi was removed from his posts in
Abu Dhabi, Sarkozy caused anger amongst party supporters in France by flying to UAE during a critical political moment, in order to attend an IPIC meeting headed by Al Qubaisi.
Sarkozy was alleged by the press to have been well-paid for his pains
and with politicians looking for financial backers for the up-coming
election, Al Qubaisi is clearly regarded as a man with powerful
connections in France.
More on the Tasameem mystery
Key role – Edmond de Rothschild Banque Privee in Luxembourg
With regard to the source of such spending power, Sarawak Report has researched further interesting evidence.
According to documents accessed by this site, Qubaisi’s private
Luxembourg bank, Edmond de Rothschild, has specified him to be the “sole
ultimate beneficial owner” of a number of off-shore legal entities
managed by them.
The list includes a company named Tasameen (sic) Investment SA in the BVI.
This revelation begs the question whether this off-shore company
might in fact be the ultimate beneficial owner of the Abu Dhabi owner of
the Hakkasan chain, because a strange tangle of names has only caused
further confusion about this matter which Moffitt has been so reluctant
to clarify.
After all, when the London based Hakkasan restaurant was originally
bought up to launch the brand in 2008, reports indicated that, far from
being a private investment by Sheikh Mansour or anyone else, this was a
purchase by the Abu Dhabi government owned Investment Authority ADIA,
through its known property arm ‘Tasameem':
Tasameem is the property investment arm of ADIA
Tasameem is indeed registered as a property investment subsidiary of ADIA, however Hakkasan does not appear to number amongst its listed acquisitions.
Tasameem Real Estate LLC hired Arabtec, an Aabar company, to build P17
Research shows on the other hand that there is an entirely separate
private company in Abu Dhabi operating under the very similar name of
Tasameem Real Estate LLC, which although it is closely connected to
Khadem Al Qubaisi (who is the Chairman) has no link whatsoever with ADIA
or any of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds, such as Aabar or IPIC.
Tasameem Real Estate LLI is an extremely big player in terms of
investment in the gulf and it is clear that this is the company which
owns Hakkasan and not the ADIA sovereign wealth fund, as was
misleadingly understood to be the case.
It is a distinction that the Hakkasan chain’s own website makes abundantly clear:
“Hakkasan Group is owned by Tasameem Real Estate LLC, an Abu Dhabi-based investment company”. [Hakkasan website]
We therefore ask is this company chaired by Khadem Al Qubaisi in any
part a subsidiary of the BVI company Tasameen Investment SA owned by
Khadem Al Qubaisi, or is it owned in any part by Sheikh Mansour who is
widely considered to be the ‘real money’ behind Khadem’s private
ventures?
The answer can in fact be found thanks to a Tampa Florida court case (see below).
Still big in the Gulf
KAQ is Chair of 1st Energy Bank, whose largest shareholder is Tasameem
Tasameem Real Estate LLC has meanwhile developed considerable
parallel shared interests with Aabar and IPIC over the period in which
Al Qubaisi managed all three companies.
These interests in many cases still remain, as does Khadem’s private
role in a number of major concerns identified in the Gulf by Sarawak
Report.
For example, Al Quabaisi remains a key player in at least two private banks.
He is Chairman of Bahrain’s First Energy Bank (started 2012), whose largest shareholder is again Tasameem Real Estate Company LLC.
Is he Chair as the owner of Tasameem or as the representative of the owner of Tasameem?
And he is also the second largest shareholder at the Alizz Islamic Bank
in Oman (also founded in 2012) in which he holds a personal 15%
shareholder stake after none other that the sovereign wealth fund he
chaired Aabar (30% stake) and again First Energy Bank (15% stake).
Tangle of joint public and private investments managed by KAQ – who took the falls and who took
the profits?
In a separate venture Tasameem Real Estate made major investments in the private jet company Xojet in 2008, only to see Aabar take over as the major investor in 2010.
The P17 Tower in Dubai was commissioned by Tasameem Real Estate, which then hired Arabtec owned by Aabar to build it.
These businesses alone indicate a tangled overlap between investments
by the sovereign funds, which Al Qubaisi was tasked with managing
through the State on behalf of his IPIC Chariman Sheikh Mansour and his
private interests through companies like Tasameem.
Front for Sheikh Mansour?
The assumption has always been therefore that Khadem Al Qubaisi has
been managing Mansour’s private investments alongside managing the
public funds he is responsible for and that the money was not his in
either case.
Santander building – Europe’s most valuable real estate complex was secretly being targeted by KAQ.
Yet, there is solid evidence that at least some of his major private
ventures have been on his own initiative, which goes a considerable way
towards explaining Al Qubaisi’s private wealth.
Earlier this week, for example, Sarawak Report reported how a European court battle,
relating to the ownership of Madrid’s Santander Bank Building, has
revealed a similar tangle of public and private Al Qubaisi interests,
with the Aabar fund posing as the major and exposed shareholder in a
loan venture in which Al Qubaisi had also taken a secret private stake.
Meanwhile, a separate court case in Tampa, Florida has also revealed
the true ownership of Hakkasan’s parent company Tasameem Real Estate
Investment.
How a Florida case outed KAQ
The case, which was brought by an investment broker Capital Trans
International (CTI) against IPIC, Aabar and Tasameem Real Estate
Investment in 2013, cited Khadem Al Qubaisi as the responsible party
controlling all three companies – two of them public wealth funds and
the third entirely private:
Tasameem [Real Estate LLC] is private limited liability company organized under the laws of Abu Dhabi and has its principal place of business there. The government of Abu Dhabi had no role in the formation of Tasameem.”
“The Defendants [IPIC, Aabar and Tasameem] are tied together by their shared leadership found in Mr. Khadem Al Qubaisi.” [Florida Middle Court]
Much of the subsequent court battle (which was eventually dismissed
as being outside of Florida jurisdiction) then focused on CTI’s
insistence on knowing who were the beneficial owners of Tasameem Real
Estate LLC in the face of Al Qubaisi’s reluctance to provide that
information.
Al Qubaisi’s legendary fondness for the fast life appears to have heightened the appeal of investing in clubs
The court eventually commanded that the ownership documents should be
produced, revealing none other than Khadem Al Qubaisi himself and a
partner by the name of Saeed Mohd Butti Khalfan Al Qebaisi, an apparent
relative, as the two partners behind the company.
There is no reference to Sheikh Mansour, which dispels all rumours
that the big money behind the Vegas nightclub boom belongs to him!
However, this confirmation of his direct ownership of the Haakasan
chain intensifies the mystery as to how Qubaisi, who is now with Jho Low
at the centre of Malaysia’s 1MDB/IPIC missing money mystery, got to be
so extremely rich?
Private partnership for KAQ, but no involvement of the Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mansour
Barclays deal began the rise to riches?
Amanda Staveley – popular investment advisor in the Gulf who was friendly with KAQ
According to researches by Sarawak Report Khadem’s first steps into
the category of personal super-wealth took place as a result of the
highly controversial Barclays rescue deal conducted during the 2008
financial crash.
The British bank was trying to avoid a government bail out and sold shares worth £3.5 billion apparently to Sheikh Mansour.
The deal was orchestrated by a close personal friend of Khadem Al
Qubaisi of the time, Amanda Staverley – he was then CEO of IPIC with
Chairman Sheikh Mansour as his boss.
There has been considerable confusion as to whether it was Mansour or
IPIC which actually put up the intial risk with the investment.
However, in the outcome it was stated
that the investor was not IPIC (as had originally been reported by
Barclays) but Mansour, who then profited personally to the tune of £3.1
billion on re-selling the shares a few months later.
“Khadem became the golden boy after the Barclays deal and nobody could question him” observes one Middle East writer, “but look at all his subsequent investments at Aabar, they were all boys toys [cars, jets, space ventures] and they lost a lot of money”
The Barclays deal, which was managed by Staveley and Al Qubaisi, has
been subjected to investigation by the UK serious fraud office, not only
with regard to the reporting irregularities but also the complaint by
shareholders that an enormous and unusual commission of £110 million had
also been written into the deal to be paid upfront to the investor,
nominally Sheikh Mansour.
The Hakkasan nightclub look
There appeared to be no reason to write this commission into an already highly profitable opportunity for the Sheikh.
Investigations, by the magazine Euromoney have subsequently shown
however that the shares in Barclays were in fact held by a series of off
shore companies, PCP Gulf Invest 1, 2 and 3 that had been incorporated
by Staverley and then placed under the sole ownership of Khadem al
Qubaisi’s own company KAQ Holdings.
Euromoney also concludes from the documents that all of the questionable £110 million ‘commission’ on the deal was “divided
up on a rough-and-ready basis between Sheikh Mansour’s associates and
advisers… Staveley; Khadem Al Qubaisi; Al Jassim; and one Said” managed under the control of Al Qubaisi’s company.
Gulf observers have told Sarawak Report that this apparent windfall
produced the first sign that KAQ had started to obtain real wealth.
However, it was only later in 2012 that the wealth fund manager started spending really serious money on properties and nightclubs.
Investigators looking into the huge sums of money that went missing
from the 1MDB/ Aabar bond deals between 2012 and 2013 and how Aabar and
IPIC’s various loss making ventures may have tied in with private deals
orchestrated by Khadem, may eventually shed light for those seeking to
understand how it can be that Mr Moffitt’s spending spree in the global
entertainment business ultimately appears to be funded by Khadem Al
Qubaisi.
Hakkasan Vegas
SARAWAK REPORT
