[WATCH] PN to speak to Bugeja after his name surfaced in leaked Swiss list

Busuttil confirms PN will speak to Bugeja over Swiss Leaks 'link'. Video: Chris Mangion

Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil has confirmed that his party will speak with former PN leadership contender Ray Bugeja over reports linking him with a €600 million account listed in the Swiss leaks files.

The Malta Independent today reported that Bugeja’s name appeared in the Swiss leaks files in connection with a number of hedge funds domiciled in the Bahamans and the Cayman Islands. It reports that Bugeja oversaw both hedge funds during his time as director and chief financial officer of investment management company Kairos.

“The PN will speak to Ray Bugeja to find out whether there’s anything more to the issue than what the Malta Independent reported,” Busuttil told MaltaToday. “However, he wasn’t a politician ten years ago. The amount of money in question was linked to him in that he was the leader of a financial company whose job is to manage people’s money.

“One cannot compare Bugeja’s case with that of former ministers Ninu Zammit and Michael Falzon, and I see no reason why the party should suspend him.”

Bugeja was a co-founder of Kairos and served as its director until April 2010. He was the Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at Kairos Investment Management Limited and Chief Financial Officer at Kairos Partners Italia Srl.

He has denied any further links with the company ever since returning to Malta in 2010 and said he never held a Swiss bank account.
Kairos was set up in 1999 in Milan, where Bugeja obtained his Italian citizenship.

The newspaper reports that the monies listed in the Swiss Leaks files were not held in a personal account. Bugeja also said that Kairos was regulated by the British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

“Many hedge fund companies in the UK, regulated by the FCA, have funds in the Cayman Islands. Italy, Luxembourg and Lugano. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how hedge funds operate,” Bugeja was quoted as saying.

“I am in Malta, paying the taxes I am due to pay in Malta. I have never had to call on any amnesty, and I have never had a need to. I have nothing to hide.”

Bugeja, also a candidate for the 2013 EP elections, headed a commission that reviewed the Nationalist Party’s finances and commercial entities.