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AN EVENING Standard investigation today raises new questions about how the Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, was able to finance his purchase of a £2.5 million villa near Regent's Park.
Using publicly-available records, the Standard examined Lord Mandelson's finances and his proceeds from a decade in the property market. Even on the most generous possible analysis, we have established that there appears to be a substantial gap between the amount of money he was able to raise and the price he paid for his latest house.
Almost 10 years after Lord Mandelson was brought down by buying a house he could not afford, the disclosure will inevitably fuel speculation as to whether he has again financed a property purchase through the generosity of a rich benefactor, along the same lines as the millionaire businessman Geoffrey Robinson, who in 1998 secretly lent him £373,000 to buy a house in Notting Hill.
Lord Mandelson's spokeswoman last night refused to deny the existence of a new loan.
In 1998 the then Mr Mandelson failed to declare the loan although his own department was investigating Mr Robinson over an unrelated matter. This forced him to quit as Trade Secretary in December 1998. Lord Mandelson declares no loan, gift or any other such interest in his current declaration of interest as a peer.
His current property is even smarter than the Notting Hill house that caused his first resignation. The pink-stucco property is on one of London's most expensive streets where neighbours have included former England and Manchester City football manager, Sven Goran-Eriksson, and theatre impresario, Sir Cameron Mackintosh.
Sir Cameron is worth around £450 million. Even Mr Goran-Eriksson was on a salary of £5 million a year at England, and £2 million at City. By contrast Mr Mandelson, then an EU commissioner, was on the comparatively modest salary of around £160,000 a year when he bought the house. He also received a further housing allowance from the EU but this was spent on renting a flat in Brussels.
Land Registry records show he paid £2.4 million for his Regent's Park house - or £2.5 million including stamp duty and legal fees. This was almost 16 times his income, a mortgage which even in pre-credit crunch days no lender would contemplate.
It was reported at the time that Mr Mandelson had financed much of the purchase through selling shares in the advertising agency Clemmow Hornby Inge. However, Companies House records obtained by the Standard show that these shares were not sold until June 2007, nearly a year after Mr Mandelson bought his Regent's Park house.
Sources close to Mr Mandelson also claimed at the time that he had been able to finance the purchase with a large legacy from his mother, Mary, who died earlier the same year. However, the Standard has obtained a copy of Mary Mandelson's will, which shows that the amount her son received, though substantial, was nowhere near £2.5 million.
After inheritance tax, the value of her estate was just under £980,000. She left a total of £76,000 to various beneficiaries including the Labour Party, the pressure group Liberty, her daughter-in-law and the nursing home in which she died. The remainder was split between her two sons, leaving Mr Mandelson with just under £452,000.
Probate was granted on 12 July 2006 and Mr Mandelson purchased his Regents Park house almost immediately afterwards, suggesting that he applied the whole sum to the purchase. That still left him almost £2.1 million short.
Could he have found the rest of the money from the equity built up in a decade's dealings in the London property market? Our investigations suggest not. Including the Notting Hill house, he has bought or sold five London properties in the past 10 years (he has lived in more than five homes but the others were temporary accommodation or rented).
Using Land Registry records, we have traced the price Mr Mandelson paid for each of his homes. He made a profit on all of them and an extraordinary profit on one. In August 1999, after selling the Notting Hill house and repaying Mr Robinson in full, he bought a one-bedroomed flat in Pembridge Villas, Notting Hill, for £249,000. Just 19 months later, in March 2001, he sold it for £545,000, a rise of 118 per cent. The average property in the area rose by only 12 per cent over the same period, although part of the difference may be explained by the fact that Mr Mandelson's flat was extensively refurbished under his ownership.
The man who paid Mr Mandelson such a high price was Arthur Bastings, then managing director for northern and central Europe at Turner Broadcasting, the TV arm of the media giant Time Warner. Mr Bastings owns the flat below Mr Mandelson's and it is possible that he was prepared to pay a substantial premium in order to join the two floors together. However, there is no record of any planning application for this. Mr Bastings declined to comment yesterday.
Mr Mandelson's profits on his other transactions were proportionately much smaller. However, the key to estimating how much equity he was able to build up from his dealings depends also on how big a mortgage debt he took each time, and thus how much he had to repay to the lender when he sold each property.
Normally, the amount of a person's mortgage on any property is private. But because of the investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into Mr Mandelson's Notting Hill house purchase, we do know that he took out a £150,000 mortgage on it. With this information, it is possible to estimate roughly how much equity he has amassed from each of his five transactions between the Notting Hill house and his purchase of the Regent's Park house in August 2006.
Our calculations show that by August 2006, even assuming Mr Mandelson reinvested the entire profit each time in his next property and took a mortgage only for the remainder, and even assuming he was lucky enough always to get the best possible interest rates and repayment deals, he would have built up equity of between only £700,000 and £840,000.
Adding in his bequest from his mother, that would still have left him between £1.2 million and £1.35 million adrift from the price of his Regent's Park house.
Mr Mandelson did have one other substantial asset, his former constituency home in Hutton Avenue, Hartlepool, which he bought in 1990 for £69,000 and sold in 2005 for £205,000. He sold a country cottage near Ross-on-Wye to buy this house. Even making the - again generous - assumption that the Hartlepool house was fully paid off when he sold it and he was able to bank all the proceeds, that would have left him with between £1 million and £1.15 million to find.
Could this gap have been bridged by a mortage? Land Registry records show that Mr Mandelson has a mortgage, with HSBC, on his Regent's Park home but the amount is not disclosed. The highest mortgage HSBC offered at the time to standard single buyers was four and a half times salary. £1 million is around six and a half times Mr Mandelson's then salary; £1.15 million is seven times.
"As someone with the potential to write high-earning memoirs or get corporate directorships in the future, it is just possible that they could have given him a six-and-a-half or seven times salary mortgage," said one banking expert. "But I still think it very unlikely. I would imagine that as a single man they would have offered him, at most, between four and five times salary."
It was reported in November 2006 that Mr Mandelson had a mortgage of £750,000 on the Regent's Park property, 4.6 times his salary, which would be consistent with this. If this is correct, this would have left him with a last gap to fill of between £250,000 and £400,000.
How could Mr Mandelson could have filled this shortfall? The Standard has examined Mr Mandelson's declarations of interest as an MP between 1992 and 2004 and as a European commissioner between 2004 and last year. As a minister between 1997 and 1998, and again between 1999 and 2001, he was not allowed any paid interests, and declares none. The same applies to his work as a European commissioner between 2004 and 2008.
During his periods as a backbench MP, he lists under "remunerated employment" only modestly-paid work for GQ magazine and speaking engagements. Apart from the ad agency Clemmow Hornby Inge, he registers no other shareholdings or directorships.
The only other source of declared income is his relationship with the French business "fixer," Alain Minc. Between 2002 and 2004 he acted as an "adviser" to Mr Minc's consultancy firm, AM Conseil. Between 2001 and last year Mr Minc was also a board member of Policy Network, a British think-thank and networking organisation of which Mr Mandelson is honorary chair.
Despite employing only three staff - Mr Minc, a secretary and a chauffeur - AM Conseil turned over £5.5 million a year in 2004. According to Mr Minc's biographer, Stephane Marchand, Mr Minc charges up to £150,000 for a consultation to favoured clients and "earns his money selling intelligence and influence." It has never been clear what Mr Mandelson, who does not speak French, did for AM Conseil, or how much he earned.
A spokeswoman for Lord Mandelson yesterday refused to answer when asked if Lord Mandelson had received any gifts or loans, other than his mortgage, to help him buy his Regent's Park house. In a five-word statement, she said that the Standard had "made inaccurate assumptions" but, when pressed, refused to elaborate.
The homes of Peter Mandelson: From the property that led to his first resignation from Government ... to a pink stucco Nash house near Regent's Park
Reader views (26)
I have been consistently horrified by everything to do with this man. Why do we keep getting all the garbage about how clever able etc etc he is supposed to be? The Labour Party has given him access to posts he isn't suited to nor does he have relevant experience- except perhaps in the dubious art of getting himself all sorts of rewards. I object very strongly to handing him a peerage, giving him EU commissioner post and so on. The whole shebang make me sick.
- W Miller, Glasgow Scotland
I suppose Andrew Gilligan had access to his bank account details as well?
What if his brother refused to take his full share of the proceeds? That could cover the shortfall at a stroke.
Could he not have sold items given to him by his grandfather, a former deputy leader of the labour party, that he kept while his mother was alive, but sold on her death?
This story is too politically inspired. Maybe Andrew Gillian would like to tell us how much he earns from the Iranian Press TV.
- Nevsky, Malaga, Spain
Great piece of investigative journalism.
The money trail DOES NOT lie and usually is the best indicator of the truth.
If there is a gap of £250,000 and £400,000 then that is a large amount and certainly needs to be cleared up.
On another front £2.5m for a villa in London. No wonder house prices are falling - surely this is massively overpriced!
- Jack Chad, READING
Your calculations assume Mandelson didn't need to spend any money on refurbishment on any of his purchases after Pembridge Villas. This is highly unlikely so that his "shortfall" is likely to have been substantially more than your estimates.
- Mike, london
As a current, card carrying member of the Labour party, I find what this expose has unearthed extremely distasteful. From being a left-winger - like myself - to a suspiciously rich homeowner, requires, I would have thought, some extra-curricular money generating activity.
Surely he's too old to be a rent boy for rich clients?
The mind boggles.
Ah well, it's good to know that Thatcherism, in all its guises, is still safe in the hands of some New Labour polititians (makes spitting gesture!)
- Les Reed, East Ham England
Why do the press allow this conman to get away with all of his wrongdoings? Anyone with a brain knows that he is dodgy. Getting 'NuLab Friends' to pay double for his property would be called money laudering if we plebs did it.
- Keith Price, Luton
Please continue Mr. Gilligan and hopefully Mandy will end up behind bars where he belongs
- R.F.Yorks, Yorks, UK
This sleazebag could never have obtained this house by honest means. He is the typical snout in the trough NuLiarBore politician
- Trevn, Abu Dhabi
Business Secretary or SECRETLY BUSINESS???
- Darren, Kilburn , London, London
Lord Mandleson (what a joke), they dont call him the Prince of Darkness for nothing. Question, what has Brown & Mandleson in common - Answer, they are both con men.
- Mr G Pickles, Leeds, UK
Ah, leave the man alone. Mandy is a pure genius Politico and does not need to be found out all the time.
- John Hammond, Portsmouth Hants
Do leopards change their spots?
- Maxine Steele, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
Leave Mandy alone! Let him enjoy his new home in peace!
- Jo Mulligan, London
It pains me to say so - perhaps this does qualify him as Business Secretary, unlike most of his colleagues who have spent their entire lives in committee rooms.
- Paul, Essex
Maybe he ticked the box for "no publicity" on his Lotto ticket
- Karli, Tottenham, London
Would you buy a used car from this man?
- Phil Jones, London UK
Once a crook always a crook!
- Steve William, london
Andrew.
On behalf of every hard working and honest citizen, please dig deep and hard. May the force be with you.
- Ted Wooller, Corfu, Greece.
I used to work for HSBC and it's not giving too much away to say that salary multipliers, for quite a while, were almost disregarded in assessing a mortgage loan application.
I saw several sanctioned at 6-7 times salary.
The main criteria (but by no means the sole one) was affordability.
The general rule of thumb was no more than 60% of salary to be taken up by mortgage and mortgage related costs.
In July 2006 rates would have been (?) c. 6% meaning the interest (assuming he funded the full £1.1m) of £70k?
I've no doubt he had earned cash from other sources in the meantime meaning he could quite feasibly have successfully applied for a mortgage loan to fund such a property.
- Andy, Cheshire
I know he has recently been exploring openings in Marrakesh
- Old Holborn, Londonistan
Your journalist seems to have forgotten that virtually none of our public servants are expected to pay any housing costs out of their salary. That would hardly be fair would it! In fact their 'salary' is really supposed to be a 'savings amount' given all the perks and benefits they get. Nothing wrong in Mandy having a nice house. There is a lot wrong with the housing allowances that so many politicians and civil servants get. Anyone one else decides to move to London to get a job is expected to find the cash for somewhere to live that they can afford with the given salary. This concept is alien to civil servants and politicians and mst be changed!!!
- John, London
Come on. Are you suggesting he has ummmmmm........Hard earned money serving British people I say. Modest home for these times. So what if.. he too was affected by credit crunch albeit 1 year earlier and decided to take a begging bowl & scour for money. Pathetic imbecile.
- Tom, London
Perhaps the £250-400k shortfall was made up as a gift from Mr Deripaska as a thank you for negotiating favourable EU tariffs for his company. That's probably what they were discussing on that yacht last summer.... of course we'll never know, as no-one has every bothered to question or investigate Mandelson over this.
- Dahele Younis, Bristol, England
How dare you question Lord Mandelson's probity. We all know what he is like.
- Ayliff Mcnab, Spain
Mandy's been living on a salary of a quarter of a million for the past few years courtesy of his job at the EU, little of which will have been spent as he was also on expenses at the same time. Now he is receiving "transitional relief" for the next few years to compensate for the drop in salary now he is a mere UK politician again.
Unfortunately, he has trousered more than enough cash at my expense to afford this house.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, Scotland
im sure the money was honestly obtained through hard work.
- John Lowe, london
