attended each other’s parties and met for private dinners.
Andrew introduced David to his mother and took him to tea
with his brother at the queen’s Scottish estate, according to
the Daily Mail. The Rowlands were regular guests at Andrew’s
country house, and he’d visit them at Havilland Hall.
A few years after the statue’s unveiling, Rowland set up a
venture called Inverness Asset Management. It was domiciled
in the British Virgin Islands, a former colony that’s become
an offshore tax haven. Blackfish marketing documents from
2007 describe Rowland as the prince’s mentor in business mat-
ters and say Andrew owned 40% of Inverness. (A lawyer for
Rowland denies that the prince had a financial interest in the
company.) Another document shows Inverness had hundreds of
thousands of pounds of investments. The prince told Jonathan
Rowland in one email that he had proposed using Inverness as
a vehicle for Qataris interested in investing in a property com-
pany associated with his brother Charles. Inverness was wound
down in January 2019.
Whatever David Rowland’s intentions were for Inverness,
they paled in comparison to his ambitions for the private bank
in Luxembourg he purchased for €50 million. The deal trans-
formed him from a scrappy capitalist on the fringes of finance
into the owner of a private bank with about 100 employees and
€1 billion of assets. Jonathan was given a top executive job, even
though he had no banking experience and had left school at 16.
(He stepped down in 2013 after a stroke.) Six of his seven siblings
would also join the firm. Its new logo featured eight dots around
a capital “H”—an echo of the five arrows on the Rothschild coat
of arms, one for each brother.
David Rowland took the title of honorary president in
2009, but he’s never been a director or had an executive role.
He’d bought the bank through a Luxembourg-based com-
pany, Luton Investments, which at the time was owned by
a company based in Guernsey. That entity was in turn con-
trolled by a series of nesting British Virgin Islands compa-
nies, the last of which was half-owned by eight businesses
controlled by eight discretionary trusts whose beneficiaries are
his children. The other half, and all of its voting rights, are con-
trolled by an entity called Rowland Purpose Trust 2001.
Despite the complex structure, former insiders say there was
never any doubt David Rowland was in charge. The plan was
to use his network of contacts and family office clients to tap
into emerging markets in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and
Asia, offering services to wealthy individuals. They called it their
“Very Private Bank,” and, like other private banks, it offered to
look after investments, suggest trading ideas, and provide basic
banking services including checking accounts and mortgages.
What set Banque Havilland apart, the former insiders say, was
the type of client the Rowlands sometimes pursued.Luxembourg doesn’t have a reputation for being the
world’s toughest enforcer of money laundering laws. But some
of the clients Banque Havilland brought on were so toxic, and
its efforts to vet them so lax, that in 2018 the country’s regulator
alerted prosecutors. That led to a criminal probe, according toBloomberg Businessweek November 23, 2020
53droppedoutofschoolat16.Shortandbarrel-chested,witha
near-permanent scowl, he peppers his speech with expletives.
He’s said he made his first million pounds in his 20s, buying and
selling real estate. He moved on to shipping, timber, and chem-
icals, eventually setting up a company called Blackfish Capital
Management, which he claimed managed $1 billion of his own
money and that of his friends.
Through Blackfish and other entities, Rowland made loans to
clients who might have had trouble borrowing from big banks.
He sometimes charged annual interest of more than 10% and
demanded collateral two or three times the value of the under-
lying loan, according to people with knowledge of Blackfish’s
business. He parlayed his financial success into political capi-
tal, contributing more than £4 million to Britain’s Conservative
PartyinthetwoyearsafterbuyingBanqueHavilland,makinghim
oneofitsbiggestdonors.DavidCameron,primeministeratthe
time,namedRowlandtheparty’streasurer,itschieffundraising
position, but he resigned before assuming the post when articles
came out about his business dealings and offshore tax status.
Andrew, 60, came from the other side of the realm: born in
Buckingham Palace, baptized by the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and raised by a governess. He stood little chance of ascending to
the throne; he also didn’t have much appetite for school. After
joining the Royal Navy at 19, Andrew served as a helicopter pilot
during the 1982 Falklands War.
He had a roguish side, too. He liked to party and had a string
of girlfriends. A whiff of scandal accompanied him. In 2007 he
sold a home his mother had given him to a Kazakh business-
man for £3 million above the asking price. More recently he’s
been embroiled in a dispute with the former owner of his Swiss
chalet over an unpaid portion of the purchase price. His friend-
ships, including with a son of former Libyan leader Moammar
Qaddafi, have been a source of annoyance for Britain’s diplo-
mats and politicians.
Andrew’s relationship with Rowland dates back to at least
2005, when he was the guest of honor at the unveiling of a
larger-than-life statue of Rowland at the financier’s estate.
A photograph from the event shows them standing side by
side in tuxedos, Andrew’s head thrown back in laughter. They
THE PRINCE visited Azerbaijan often and met
more than a dozen times with President Aliyev