the hidden face of the Castel empire, overtaken by the Swiss tax authorities

He is undoubtedly the least known French billionaire to the general public. Pierre Castel, 96, has nevertheless built a veritable drinking empire. His group is one of the main wine producers in the world, with brands such as Roche Mazet, Baron de Lestac, Vieux Papes, La Villageoise and Listel. The Castel group also owns the Nicolas chain of wine merchants.

>> SURVEY. The Castel group, a French beverage giant, suspected of having financed militias in the Central African Republic, targeted by an investigation by the anti-terrorist prosecution

The life of Pierre Castel is worthy of a novel. He is the son of Spanish immigrants who came to settle in Bordeaux for the harvest. The man then made his place in the wine world with his brothers and sisters, at a time when alcohol was still served to children in school canteens. Today, he is the 10th wealthiest Frenchman, according to the magazine’s 2022 ranking. Challenges. His group achieves an annual turnover of nearly six billion euros.

Africa in focus

This fortune, he does not owe it only to the wine and the estates he bought over the years in the south of France. Pierre Castel was able to diversify its activities very early on by establishing itself on the African continent. He took his first steps in Gabon, by buying an old colonial trading post, the Brasseries et glacières d’Indochine company. He became friends with Gabonese President Omar Bongo, who led the country for 42 years. The Castel group is now the second largest beer producer in Africa. But it is also present on the market for sodas, water, vegetable oils, sugar and flour…

“In Africa, the Castel group is established in 23 countries with more than 130 subsidiaries, details independent researcher Olivier Blamangin who spent several years piecing together the extent of his empire. It generates more than 80% of its turnover and more than 90% of its profits on this continent. Its net profits are considerable: between 500 million and one billion euros per year, after taxes.

In Africa, Pierre Castel has an influence as strong as Martin Bouygues or Vincent Bolloré in the business world, believes Antoine Glaser, author of the book Arrogant like a Frenchman in Africa (Fayard, 2016). According to the journalist, it is first of all his discretion that seduces under the gold of the presidential palaces. “The taste for secrecy is extremely strong in Africa. Pierre Castel understood very early on that African heads of state had a horror of French businessmen who displayed their privileged relations with them”, analyzes this specialist in Françafrique.

Discretion is indeed what best characterizes Pierre Castel. He rarely gives interviews and shows himself little in public. He left France after the election of François Mitterrand in 1981. “I have always been afraid of socialists, he confided in a rare interview granted to Challenges in 2014. Financially and economically, France is becoming dangerous. When more than 50% of your income is taken from you, you cannot accept it.” Pierre Castel therefore preferred to go into exile in Switzerland. Life is more peaceful there and the tax system is much gentler.

A world tour of offshore places

Pierre Castel also seems to be an ace in optimization. Identifying the location of the companies that his group has owned or still owns means traveling to quite exotic places: Gibraltar, Mauritius, Liechtenstein, Singapore, Malta, Hong Kong, Jersey, the British Virgin Islands… A real tour of the world of the most popular “offshore places” for tax exiles.

“There is a desire for tax optimization for certain companies in the group, such as those in which beverage licenses are domiciled, explains researcher Olivier Blamangin. Each Castel brewery in Africa will produce a beer of this or that brand. The trademark will be registered with a company located in a tax haven – it has long been the British Virgin Islands. The Castel group will then have to pay the royalties to this company.” The mechanism is clever according to Olivier Blamangin, “because these royalties are totally exempt from tax in the British Virgin Islands”.

The galaxy of companies in the Castel empire looks like a collection of Russian dolls. Each company is owned by another located in a different country, and it seems endless. At the top of the pyramid is a holding company in Gibraltar, Cassiopee, and an investment fund in Singapore, IBBF. Between the two slips a trust of Societe Generale Asia (SG Trust Asia) which seems to serve as a screen. “The objective of this type of arrangement is not only to benefit from the tax advantages of the country, believes Olivier Blamangin. This also hides the ultimate owners of the group.”

A record fine

The opacity conferred by these assemblies does not make it possible to know the identity of the real beneficiaries of the fund located at the top of the empire. The patriarch claimed to have divested himself of all of his group’s share capital. The justice of the canton of Geneva has however decided to investigate. And she discovered the existence of a foundation based in Liechtenstein which, according to her, would have given the opportunity to Pierre Castel to retain control of the group. This foundation would also have allowed him to receive dividends not declared to the Swiss tax authorities. As revealed by the online media Gotham City, the Swiss tax administration has located several other “family” trusts in Singapore. Swiss justice considered that offshore front companies served to “hide bank accounts” of which Pierre Castel would be “the ultimate owner”.

Suspected of “tax evasion” – a shame in this country which has long been one of the most coveted offshore places – the French billionaire was sentenced to a record fine of 410 million Swiss francs (more than 400 million euros). euros) for failing to declare some of these arrangements. Between 2007 and 2011, the sum would correspond to the distribution of dividends from IBBF to its beneficiaries. If the businessman disputes the facts, he had to pay part of the fine, while refraining from revealing the identity of these famous beneficiaries…

A strange trust

Radio France’s investigation unit had access to unpublished documents from the Panama Papers, this gigantic data leak revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which it is a partner. They also reveal the existence in 2012 of an offshore legal structure, Soana Trust, whose economic beneficiaries were Pierre Castel, his wife Françoise Gilardot, and his only child, Romy Castel.

Asked about the existence of this family trust, the family’s Swiss lawyer, Gégory Clerc (who, according to our information, has just been appointed director of the group’s holding company, Cassiopee) did not wish to answer our questions. . The tax specialist only indicated, in an email, that “all assets relate to private wealth [de Pierre Castel, son épouse et sa fille] have been declared. This is therefore perfectly fiscally transparent.”

According to the documents we have consulted, in 2012, the assets of the Soana trust amounted to more than 601 million dollars. Part of these assets would then have passed through two companies created in New Zealand, Cariton Trading Ltd. and Tergale Holding Ltd. Was Soana used to hold part of the assets of IBBF, the fund associated with the Castel group in Singapore? Was IBBF created to distribute assets among the various family members and relatives of the billionaire? Pierre Castel’s lawyer did not wish to respond on this subject, indicating that our information contained “many inaccuracies”, without specifying which ones.

Shareholder until 2018

As Gotham City reported in October 2022, Pierre Castel explained during his tax litigation in Switzerland to have “divested from 1992 of the entire share capital” of the group and no longer have “only a simple advisory role”. By consulting the Singapore commercial register, however, we discover that the French billionaire was a shareholder of Investment Beverage Business Management (IBBM, structure linked to IBBF) until April 2018, and that he was its director until December 15, 2022.

Pierre Castel – alias “Jesus Sebastian Castel” – also held shares between 2018 and 2019 in two other companies. These shares would then have been transferred to his daughter, Romy. The documents that the Radio France investigation unit consulted also tell us that Pierre Castel is now domiciled in Lisbon, Portugal. He would therefore no longer be a Swiss tax resident.

French domains move to Luxembourg

Today, the Castel group is in full restructuring. He migrated his French activity to another territory, also renowned for its tax advantages: Luxembourg. In October 2022, the Luxembourg company of the group, DF Holding SA, absorbed Copagef, the company which until then managed all the French activities: the vineyards, the Nicolas establishments, etc., as well as a large part of the structures African beer held by international breweries and coolers. Two hypotheses are put forward by a specialist to explain these arrangements: either the group seeks to prepare the “succession” of the patriarch, or he seeks to comply with the various tax authorities, after the “misadventure” of the billionaire in Switzerland.

According to an internal source at Castel, this merger-absorption would only aim to “simplify the organization chart of the group”. Consulted by Castel, the Directorate General of Public Finances (DGFip) in France has given the green light for this “cross-border merger-absorption” in August 2022, believing that she had no “not primarily aimed at fraud or tax evasion”. Asked, the DGFip specifies that the fact that the shareholders of the Luxembourg company thus restructured are French tax residents “does not call for criticism in itself”, from the moment the merger of the two companies was not “artificial”.

Alert the Radio France investigation unit: to send information to Radio France’s investigation unit anonymously and securely, you can now click on alerter.radiofrance.fr