New Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s £100million family property empire is funded with a mystery £30m loan, the Mirror can reveal.
One of their companies Zahawi & Zahawi Ltd, founded by Mr Zahawi and his wife Lana, owns £58m of commercial property in the UK and its accounts reveal it is funded by £55m in loans.
But just £23m of these are secured loans from banks – the remaining £32m is from “other creditors”.
It does not appear that the money is borrowed directly from the couple themselves.
Under “related party transactions”, it is revealed the company owes £1.5m to two sister companies owned by Mrs Zahawi.
The source of the remaining £30m in loans is not revealed.
Accounting expert Prof Richard Murphy, of Sheffield University Management School, said the funding arrangement was “exceptionally unusual” and that the Zahawis must “have some very wealthy friends”.
The Mirror has revealed that the couple’s companies have spent more than £80m on commercial properties in the last six years.
Mr Zahawi founded and ran the polling firm YouGov and continued to advise the firm while an MP.
He founded Zahawi & Zahawi with Lana in June 2010, weeks after he became an MP.
He quit as a director in 2018 when he became a Government minister and gave his 50% stake in the company to his wife.
In 2012, the MP for Stratford-on-Avon, said his “family arrived on these shores with only £50”.
Mr Zahawi has continued to earn large sums as an MP through a string of lucrative second jobs, including £1.3m from one oil company.
But the now Chancellor was able to keep his total second job earnings hidden due to a Parliamentary loophole.
Deputy Labour Party leader Angela Rayner said: “The new Chancellor must reveal who is funding his company’s property empire, whether that money is coming from overseas or through family connections – and whether all his interests have been properly declared.
“The cloud of suspicion will hang over him until he comes clean with the British people.”
Mr Zahawi said last night: “Smears have falsely claimed that the Serious Fraud Office, the National Crime Agency and HMRC are looking into me.
“Let me be clear, I am not aware of this. I have not been told that this is the case. I’ve always declared my financial interests and paid my taxes in the UK.”
He insisted that neither he nor his wife benefits from an offshore trust and that he has “never used offshore companies or services firms based in tax havens for the purchase of property or properties in the UK”.
He vowed to publish his tax return annually if elected PM.
