Updated | Mizzi says £5 million ‘personal revenue’ generated for Pcubed firm

Minister Konrad Mizzi, revealed in the Panama Papers of having opened an offshore company in Panama and offshore trust in New Zealand, is disputing a new report in The Times that he amassed €6.4 million in income prior to becoming energy minister in March 2013.

The offshore company formation is believed to have been started by his auditors Nexia BT in March 2013, together with another offshore firm for the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri.

Emails obtained from the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists shows that Nexia BT sent a source of funds declaration to Mossack Fonseca saying Mizzi’s money came from “personal businesses”. The declaration said he set up a practice in the UK and developed major accounts “with personal revenue amounting to GBP 5 million” (€6.4 million) prior to becoming a minister.

The Orion Trust, a company that would be administering his New Zealand trust ‘Rotorua’, spent months questioning the source of the funds going into it and the proposed business activities of Mizzi’s company in Panama due to his status as a politically exposed person.

Mizzi however is disputing the report. He told MaltaToday that the bio supplied by Nexia refers to his role as partner and head of PCubed’s energy practice for Europe, the Middle East and Africa which he set up and where he “developed major accounts with personal revenue amounting to GBP5m.”

The bio supplied by Nexia also refers to his role in forging a commercial alliance between seven UK energy companies to share laboratory and construction related services “with a value in excess of GBP600m” apart from setting up new operations in roads landscaping and housing, and advisory services through Deloitte UK, Moorhouse Consulting and British Telecom.

“The Times of Malta is at best misreading, at worst maliciously misleading, by quoting a document which is a short biography of my work experience abroad prior to my candidacy with the Labour Party.

“Therein, it is stated that I personally generated 5 million GBP in revenue, obviously for the firm I formed part of. Any other reading of that statement would be entirely out of context, disingenuous or plain malicious.”

Mizzi, who declared bank deposits of €389,440 in 2015 in his parliamentary declaration of assets, had always maintained that the New Zealand trust was set up to hold his London property and any rent coming from it.

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The Panama Papers emails shows Nexia had instructed Mossack Fonseca to transfer Mizzi’s and Schembri’s Panama companies to the New Zealand trust using nominee shareholders, to conceal their identities.

Both men have denied acting to form a joint venture, but Nexia’s partner Karl Cini is reported to have told Mossack that the two Panama companies would act as a “vehicle of [sic] extracting the profits from this venture, since from [a] commercially sensitive perspective they cannot appear as direct shareholders, either personally or via holding entities”.

The “joint venture” in question included “trade in used tyres” and “waste trading” as well as ventures in remote gaming, the e-mails show.  “I want to stress the fact that, under our legislation, PEPs are openly allowed to hold shareholdings in other businesses,” Cini said.