Ali Ansari, accused of financing Revolutionary Guards, owns Mallorca golf club and Frankfurt hotels via offshore companies

By Euan Healy in London and Laura Dubois in Brussels

Financial Times

An Iranian tycoon under sanctions in the UK for allegedly financing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has funnelled hundreds of millions of euros into a sprawling property portfolio across mainland Europe.

Ali Ansari, whose family founded failed Iranian lender Ayandeh Bank, amassed luxury properties ranging from a golf resort in Mallorca to an Austrian ski hotel, according to corporate filings reviewed by the FT.

The UK sanctioned him after Ayandeh’s collapse in October for funding “hostile activity” by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards force, branding Ansari a “corrupt Iranian banker and businessman” and freezing a London property portfolio worth more than £150mn.

The FT has now identified a complex web of offshore companies, spanning from Luxembourg and St Kitts and Nevis to Austria, Germany and Spain, through which Ansari amassed a vast, previously unreported collection of properties in mainland Europe.

This takes the known value of Ansari’s total property empire in the UK and Europe to about €400mn, according to purchase prices recorded on the Land Registry and valuations listed in company accounts.

Ansari, who according to the UK’s sanctions entry holds passports from Iran, St Kitts and Nevis and Cyprus, is not under sanction in the EU. But the properties are an example of how Iranian tycoons close to the regime have scooped up lucrative assets despite extensive efforts to shut them out of western economies.

Ayandeh Bank’s collapse late last year exacerbated an economic downward spiral that culminated in protests in Iran this month in which thousands of people were killed in the worst violence since the 1979 revolution.

The EU is working on additional sanctions against the country ahead of the next meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers at the end of the month, according to European officials.

Offshore accounts show Ansari owns the Steigenberger golf and spa resort in Camp de Mar — a 164-room luxury Mallorca hotel which offers access to one of the most challenging courses in the Mediterranean — through multiple Spanish and German holding companies, which value the resort at €22mn.

He also owns a stake in a luxury ski resort in the Austrian Alps, the Schlosshotel Kitzbühel.

Ansari owns two hotels in Germany, the Hilton Frankfurt City Centre and the Hilton Frankfurt Gravenbruch. Each is valued at about €80mn by their Dutch and German holding companies.

He also owns the Bero Oberhausen shopping centre in north-western Germany through shell companies that value the asset at €68mn. According to Luxembourg filings for one of Ansari’s holding companies, Leopard Germany Bero 1 S.à r.l., the property was purchased for €49mn.

Most of Ansari’s European properties are owned through a series of shell companies, such as Tidalwave Holdings I in Luxembourg, that pass through different European jurisdictions before shareholder records eventually lead to a St Kitts and Nevis holding company called Smart Global Limited.

UK corporate filings name Ansari as the ultimate beneficial owner of Smart Global Limited.

The FT reconstructed the portfolio after reviewing the most recent corporate filings across the jurisdictions, which range from 2024 onwards. It is possible Ansari could have liquidated some of his assets since the latest filing dates.

A subsidiary of Smart Global Limited, Isle of Man-based Birch Ventures Limited, was used to buy a £73mn portfolio of 12 derelict mansions on London’s The Bishops Avenue, nicknamed Billionaires’ Row, in 2013. Ansari purchased another mansion on the street a year later for £33.7mn.

His now-frozen London collection includes two luxury flats with servants’ quarters close to Kensington Palace that he bought for about £36mn in 2014 and 2016, and an apartment in Buxmead, a luxury gated residence on The Bishops Avenue, which he acquired for £8.1mn in 2017.

Ansari’s lawyer Roger Gherson said: “Our client strongly denies that he has ever had any financial relationship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in Iran.”

“It is his intention to challenge the UK government’s decision to impose sanctions on him,” Gherson added. “In these circumstances where litigation is anticipated, he has no further comment.”

The protests in Iran were triggered last month by a sharp collapse in the currency and soaring inflation before spiralling into broader demonstrations against the Islamic republic itself.

Many protesters channelled their anger towards what they say is the corruption that has allowed those with ties to the regime to prosper despite a dramatic collapse in living standards in the country.

Ayandeh, which was folded into a state-owned bank to protect its depositors, had for years been accused by politicians and analysts of channelling funds into speculative ventures and related parties.

Ansari denied wrongdoing in the wake of Ayandeh’s collapse, saying the bank was impeded by outside actors and that “the truth will eventually come out”.