Sign up for a daily newsletter defining what matters in business and markets

Stories

Portion of Queen Elizabeth's estate was invested offshore, docs show

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II meets Drum Horse Perseus in London last month. Photo: Yui Mok, Pool Photo via AP

A portion of Queen Elizabeth II's private estate was invested in offshore funds in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda and used to fund a small interest in the takeover of two British retail chains, per the BBC. The revelation was contained in the Paradise Papers, a trove of leaked documents from offshore law firms detailing the tax avoidance strategies of the global elite.

Why it matters: The disclosure shows just how high up some of the information in the Paradise Papers might go. And while the Queen is legally in the clear — she's exempt from paying tax in the United Kingdom, but does so anyway — her estate's investment comes across as poor judgment given the weight of her reputation.

More about the investment:

  • It involved purchasing a stake in the controversial British rent-to-buy chain BrightHouse. The company was accused of "preying on the vulnerable" by the Financial Times due to sky-high interest rates on home appliances and other fixtures.
  • It was notably small — only a few million pounds of the Queen's £500m estate. The current investment amounts to just 0.3% of the estate's total value. The controversial interest in BrightHouse is just 0.0006% of the estate.

Go deeper: The Paradise Papers hit Wilbur Ross on this side of the Atlantic.