The investment arm of a Canadian provincial government with an alleged history of tax avoidance is the owner of a tax haven firm that holds nearly £20m of Scottish property, The Ferret can reveal.
Marlin Glasgow Sàrl, a company registered in Luxembourg, bought multiple properties on Glasgow’s Watt Street, Houston Street and Houston Place in 2021 for a collective £19.1m, according to official data.
But the true ‘beneficial’ owner of the company is the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (Aimco), a Canadian public body in the province of Alberta.
Aimco has previously come under fire at home and abroad for its use of tax havens and a UK “tax avoidance scheme”.
There is no suggestion it has avoided tax in Scotland. But Labour MSP Paul Sweeney accused Aimco of “parasitic” ownership and benefitting from “unearned” rents.
A tax expert and economist warned that offshore firms can avoid paying “proportionate” tax to fund public services, create “grossly unfair competition” for Scots businesses, and risk unemployment as a result.
The extent of Scots property owned offshore and by foreign governments is “striking”, he added. In 2020, we found that 60 per cent of foreign-owned properties belonged to companies based in tax havens.
As this income is syphoned from Glasgow to Alberta, our city’s local services are in a state of collapse, with half a billion pounds of cuts over the last decade.
Paul Sweeney MSP, Scottish Labour
Last year, we revealed that the governments of China, Qatar, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates owned nearly £250m worth of property including Highland estates, office blocks, student accommodation and industrial estates.
Aimco owns industrial units via Marlin Glasgow, including Kingston Bridge trading estate, which it rents out to hardware firms, and other companies.
Aimco was revealed as the true ‘beneficial’ owner of the company in light of the UK’s Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
The law requires overseas firms who want to buy, sell or transfer property or land in the UK to register with Companies House and reveal their beneficial owners – those who ultimately reap the financial rewards of ownership.
Aimco’s listed owner – and the co-owner of Marlin Glasgow – is “His Majesty The King In Right Of Alberta”. The monarch’s title is used to designate Alberta’s crown land – ultimately public land.
‘Tax avoidance scheme’
Aimco “invests globally on behalf of pension, endowment, insurance and government fund clients in Alberta” and manages £90bn in assets. It generated £36bn between 2013 and 2023, according to its website.
In 2012, the Canadian public body was among a controversial consortium of investors and developers that bought the BBC’s former TV Centre in London for about £200m.
The sale was branded “shocking” by the chair of the UK parliamentary public spending watchdog, Margaret Hodge, who slammed the BBC for “selling knowingly to a consortium that deliberately sets up a very, very complex structure… the purpose of which is to avoid tax”.
Aimco and other provincial crown corporations are accountable to the relevant provincial government – in this case Alberta. But there has been debate in Canada about whether they should exist at all.
A 2017 investigation based on the Paradise Papers leak of offshore investment records revealed that millions of Canadians unknowingly had an interest in money stored in tax havens via eight large pension funds, including Aimco.
Some Canadian pension funds reportedly acknowledged that offshore investment structures helped them legally minimise tax paid abroad, and some claimed it was part of their duty to maximise savings available for retirees.
Aimco’s ‘parasitic rentierism’
Glasgow Labour MSP Paul Sweeney said: “This important research by The Ferret shines a light on the obscure reality of how vast tracts of Scotland’s asset wealth is owned overseas by opaque entities that extract rents through tax havens”.
Such entities are “contributing nothing of value in the way of any productive investments or innovations that grow the economy, increase tax revenue and improve living standards in our country,” he argued.
“It is a fine example of parasitic rentierism that we in Scotland must take greater action to address by taxing land value as well as building up municipal and state ownership of domestic assets, instead of this grotesque situation where the Canadian province of Alberta benefits from unearned… rents from its property portfolio in Glasgow.
“As this income is syphoned from Glasgow to Alberta, our city’s local services are in a state of collapse, with half a billion pounds of cuts over the last decade.”
Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said: “This investigation clearly demonstrates the importance of the public having access to information on the true owners of companies and other legal vehicles.
“The extent of ownership of Scottish property not only through offshore vehicles but by foreign governments is striking.
“And where that ownership is channelled through opaque offshore structures, it has the potential to facilitate the extraction of profits generated in Scotland without proportionate payment of tax to support Scottish public services, and also to expose tax-paying Scottish businesses to grossly unfair competition – leaving needlessly high unemployment in its wake.
“Policymakers should insist on full transparency and much closer scrutiny by HMRC.”
Aimco and the Legislative Assembly of Alberta did not respond to requests to comment.
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Main image: Dean Zielinski/iStock
