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| Industry | Financial services |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Mauritius |
Key people |
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| Website | www |
Belvedere Management is a financial services group based in Mauritius that claims to have $16 billion of assets under administration. In March 2015, Offshore Alert described the group as a Ponzi scheme and it is currently under investigation by regulators in South Africa, Mauritius and Guernsey. The allegations remain unproven.
Belvedere is reported to run 125 hedge funds and has interests in fund administration, life insurance, stock broking, and investment management. [1] It operates from Mauritius, Guernsey, the Cayman Islands and South Africa and claims to have $16 billion of assets under administration. [2] The group is managed by Irish businessman David Cosgrove, Mauritian accountant Kenneth Maillard, and South African fund manager Cobus Kellermann. [3] [4] [5]
In October 2014, The Mauritius Financial Services Commission placed two funds run by Belvedere as protected cell companies, Lancelot Global PCC and The Four Elements PCC, in administration meaning that they are prohibited from accepting new business. [1] Among the companies affected by the suspension of the Four Elements fund has been Apollo Multi-Asset Management in the United Kingdom who have written to their investors to advise them that they are unable to withdraw money from its Mauritius domiciled £5.81 million Four Elements Apollo fund. The administration is being managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers. [6] On 1 June 2015, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority announced that Belvedere entity Brighton SPC had been placed in Controllership following a forensic examination of the fund by accountants. The controllers now have complete authority over the fund in order to protect the interests of investors and creditors. [7] In March 2015 the publication Offshore Alert accused the group of being a Ponzi scheme that is currently under investigation by regulators in South Africa, Mauritius and Guernsey. [2] [8]
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Some of the entities in the group are:
The economy of Mauritius is a mixed developing economy based on agriculture, exports, financial services, and tourism. Since the 1980s, the government of Mauritius has sought to diversify the country's economy beyond its dependence on just agriculture, particularly sugar production. In terms of energy, Mauritius' endowment with alternative energy resources and good governance makes it one of the potential winners in the global transition to renewable energy and the country is ranked no. 8 among 156 nations in the index of geopolitical gains and losses after energy transition.
An offshore fund is generally a collective investment scheme domiciled in an offshore jurisdiction. Like the term "offshore company", the term is more descriptive than definitive, and both the words 'offshore' and 'fund' may be construed differently.
A segregated portfolio company, sometimes referred to as a protected cell company, is a company which segregates the assets and liabilities of different classes of shares from each other and from the general assets of the SPC.
Walkers is a Cayman Islands head quartered offshore law firm. Walkers provides legal, corporate, compliance and fiduciary services to global corporations, financial institutions, capital markets participants and investment fund managers. Walkers practices the laws of six jurisdictions from ten offices globally. It is a member of the offshore magic circle.
Maitland is a global advisory and administration firm providing multi-jurisdictional legal, tax, fiduciary, investment and fund administration services to private, corporate and institutional clients. The firm has in excess of US $160 billion assets under administration and is privately owned by management and staff, with services from 11 offices worldwide.
Britam Holding PLC is a leading diversified financial services group and is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. The group has presence in seven Africa countries in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan, Mozambique and Malawi.
CWM FX was a foreign exchange trading firm located at the Heron Tower at 110 Bishopsgate, otherwise known as Salesforce Tower. Dealing at the firm was suspended in March 2015 following a police raid on the firm and 13 arrests. There have been no convictions relating to these arrests as of 15 June 2015. CEO Anthony Constantinou was convicted in 2016 of sexual assault and sentenced to serve 12 months in jail. London Police later revealed that most of the company's revenue came from a £50m alleged Ponzi scheme which promised returns of 5% per month.
David Dawson Cosgrove is an Irish businessman whose Belvedere Management group claimed to have $16 billion of assets under administration. In 2016 he was barred from serving as an officer of any company regulated by the Mauritius Financial Services Commission (FSC) for a period of 5 years and the funds he managed were liquidated.
Kenneth Jean Georgy Maillard is a Mauritian accountant who is one of the principals of the Belvedere Management group.
Jacobus "Cobus" Everhardus Kellermann is a South African Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA).
David E. Marchant is a US-based, British journalist who is the owner and editor of OffshoreAlert, a news service and conference organizer that specialises in exposing financial crime while in progress. Marchant and/or OffshoreAlert have received several death threats and have been sued in several countries and jurisdictions, including state and federal court in the USA, Vancouver, Toronto, London, Panama, Grenada, and the Cayman Islands.
Bramer Banking Corporation, commonly known as Bramer Bank, is a financial institution based in Mauritius with its head office is situated at Port Louis and currently under statutory management. It was one of the commercial banks licensed by the Bank of Mauritius, the country's central bank and the nation's banking regulator.
British American Investment (BAIC) was an investment conglomerates based in Mauritius. Seized by the Government of Mauritius in 2015 for operating a ponzi scheme.
Richard Joseph Fagan is a businessman who created the Kijani Commodity Fund in 2011, later embroiled in a $16bn Ponzi scheme probe. Fagan has never been charged in relation with the probe. He is a shareholder in Kijani Resources Ltd.
William Francis Redford is a British businessman. He is the chief executive, since October 2014, of Eligere Investments plc, a company formerly traded on the GXG Market in Denmark.
Eligere Investments plc was a company that traded in environmental services such as the generation, provision and distribution of voluntary carbon offsets. The company received a warning from the UK's Financial Conduct Authority that it may be providing financial services or products in the UK without authorisation. The company became insolvent in 2017 and was liquidated in April 2020.
Fulhold Pharma is a British pharmaceutical company.
Fund governance refers to a system of checks and balances and work performed by the governing body (board) of an investment fund to ensure that the fund is operated in the best interests of the fund and its investors. The objective of fund governance is to uphold the regulatory principles commonly known as the four pillars of investor protection that are typically promulgated through the investment fund regulation applicable in the jurisdiction of the fund. These principles vary by jurisdiction and in the US, the 1940 Act generally ensure that: (i) The investment fund will be managed in accordance with the fund's investment objectives, (ii) The assets of the investment fund will be kept safe, (iii) When investors redeem they will get their pro rata share of the investment fund's assets, (iv) The investment fund will be managed for the benefit of the fund's shareholders and not its service providers.
Qualifying Investor Alternative Investment Fund or QIAIF is a Central Bank of Ireland regulatory classification established in 2013 for Ireland's five tax-free legal structures for holding assets. The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV is the most popular of the five Irish QIAIF structures, and was designed in 2014 to rival the Cayman Island SPC; it is the main tax-free structure for foreign investors holding Irish assets.
Citco, also known as the Citco Group of Companies and the Curaçao International Trust Co., is a privately owned global hedge fund administrator headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, founded in 1948. It is the world's largest hedge fund administrator, managing over $1 trillion in assets under administration.