The sheer scale of the land now owned by H&M billionaire Stefan Persson has been revealed thanks to research by the investigative magazine Private Eye.
Large swathes of land to the south and east of Marlborough (coloured orange on the map) are owned by Mr Persson’s company Ramsbury S.A.R.L. and registered in Luxembourg.
As revealed by Marlborough News Online back in March 2013, Mr Persson bought the vast majority of the 8,800 acre Savernake Estate from the Crown Estate. Mr Persson already owned 9,000 acres around Marlborough. He also owns Ramsbury Brewery and Ramsbury’s Bell Inn.
His property portfolio also includes houses in London, Paris and Stockholm, and the 21-cottage village of Linkenholt in Hampshire. In December last year he won planning permission to built a mansion on his 780 acre Park Farm at Ramsbury.
The 4,000 acre Savernake Forest – the UK’s largest privately-owned woodland, controlled by a trust (also, confusingly, called Savernake Estate) on behalf of Lord Cardigan and his son Thomas, Viscount Savernake, and registered in the UK – pales in comparison.
According to Private Eye’s interactive map, there are four other large private estates around Marlborough, although nothing like the size of the Ramsbury Estate.
One is the Manton Estate to the west of Marlborough, owned by Megalodon Limited, whose residency status could not be identified, while further west land around West Overton is owned by HWL Holdings Ltd, based in the Cayman Islands.
To the north, land around Ogbourne St Andrew is owned by the Jersey-based Stanhope Gate Nominees Limited. And to the north west, land around Winterbourne Down is owned by Guernsey-based Temple Estates Limited.
The publication carried out extensive research to show the extent of ownership of British land by offshore companies.
Using Land Registry data released under Freedom of Information laws, and then linking more than 100,000 land title register entries to specific addresses, Private Eye has tracked all leasehold and freehold interests acquired by offshore companies between 2005 and 2014.
Owning British property offshore has many tax advantages, not least as a way of bypassing inheritance tax.
Earlier this week, an article in The Guardian revealed just how attractive land is becoming to investors.
Quoting land agents Savills, the newspaper said the price of UK agricultural land has risen 277 percent in a decade, compared with London property prices at 127 percent.
Agricultural land is currently selling for £10,000 or more an acre. With planning permission for housing it can be worth 250 times that.
To view the interactive map, log on to www.private-eye.co.uk/registry
