Secrecy for Sale

Published — April 26, 2013 Updated — May 19, 2014 at 12:19 pm ET

Real estate mogul built offshore maze as creditors, Swedish government pursued him

Introduction

Bankrupt tycoon Hans Thulin on the cover of newsmagazine Fokus. (Courtesy of Fokus)

STOCKHOLM — Bankrupt Swedish real estate tycoon Hans Thulin had as much as $17 million sheltered offshore at a time when the Swedish government was pursuing him in court for millions of dollars in unpaid debts, according to secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and reviewed by Fokus, Sweden’s leading newsmagazine.

Details of Thulin’s offshore holdings are big news in Sweden because he has been one of the Swedish state’s largest debtors — and because he’s well-remembered in his native country as a lavish collector of art and luxury cars and a symbol of the high-flying, easy-credit ’80s. It was the fall of his commercial property empire that helped signal the beginning of Sweden’s 1990 real estate meltdown.

A government-owned company that had taken over bad debts owed by Thulin sued him in 2007, seeking to force him to repay business loans he’d defaulted on. A trial court imposed a judgment of 150 million Swedish crowns against him in 2009.

By early 2013, the total debt and interest Thulin owed the government had grown to 179 million crowns ($28 million).

Continue reading at ICIJ.

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HOMEiA
5 years ago

$17 million …This guy really smart to get such amount of money. This is also a lesion for many investors.