Paradise Papers: Spar blames the rand
Currency risk and corruption at home are why retailer Spar, which is among the SA companies named in the Paradise Papers, says it set up a company in the Isle of Man, despite tax-haven reputational risks
Spar, SA’s high-flying franchise retailer, says the increasingly fragile rand is the reason it created a new arm in the Isle of Man to hold the 60% of Spar Switzerland it bought last year. "It’s largely about the currency risk," says CEO Graham O’Connor, in an interview with the Financial Mail. "For companies such as ourselves, that’s a real concern — especially with what’s happening in SA with all the corruption and other things going on."Revelations of how Spar last year created its Isle of Man company, Spar Africa Holdings (SAH), with assistance from offshore law firm Appleby, are contained in the Paradise Papers. This leak, part of 13.4m documents released globally, sheds light on how companies operate in tax havens. A KPMG document, signed by Spar finance director Mark Godfrey on March 3 last year, applying for the creation of SAH, says the Isle of Man entity won’t be an operating company, but rather "an investment holding company" to hold its investments in Europe. SAH was bei...
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