the times | Wednesday June 8 2022 3
News
Holocaust and has donated more than
£350,000 to the Tories since 2019.
Earning local admiration in Como
has put him on par with the actor
George Clooney, whose purchase of a
villa at Laglio has been credited with
drawing the rich and famous to buy
property, boosting the local economy
and winning Clooney friends locally.
A spokesman for Howard declined to
comment.Brad Pitt has accused Angelina Jolie of
forcing him to share his French winery
with a British billionaire of “poisonous
intentions”.
In the latest development in the
Hollywood couple’s fractious divorce
battle, Pitt’s lawyers have alleged that
Jolie set out to harm him by selling her
stake in their vineyard in Provence to a
company controlled by Yuri Shefler,
the founder of Stoli Group, a wine and
spirits empire.
In papers filed before a court in Los
Angeles, Pitt’s legal team says that Jolie
chose to sell to Shefler in the know-
ledge that he would then seek to
Pitt accuses Jolie of selling winery share to ‘poisonous’ tycoon
launch a hostile takeover of Château de
Miraval.
Pitt claims that after buying the prop-
erty together in 2008, they both agreed
never to sell their stake without the
other’s consent. He says that Jolie’s sale
of her share to the tycoon broke this
agreement.
The documents assert that Shefler,
who has British, Russian and Israeli
nationality, uses “cut-throat business
tactics and dubious professional asso-
ciations”, which could “jeopardise the
reputation of the brand Pitt so carefully
built”. They add: “Jolie has sought to
force Pitt into partnership with a
stranger, and worse yet, a stranger with
poisonous associations and intentions.”Shefler, 54, was born in Russia but
fled to Switzerland after falling foul of
President Putin, who he claims has per-
secuted him. He is a vocal opponent of
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Miraval vineyard, which was
bought by the American actors for
€35 million, is now worth an estimated
€140 million and produces acclaimed
rosé wines. It has become central to the
divorce between Pitt, 58, and Jolie, 47,
who are also in a battle over custody of
four of their six children, the other two
having reached adulthood.
The winery is described as Pitt’s “pas-
sion” and his legal team credit him with
transforming it “into a multimillion-
dollar global business and one of theworld’s most highly regarded pro-
ducers of rosé wine”. Jolie, they
contend, “contributed nothing”
to its success: “Jolie knew and in-
tended that Shefler and his affili-
ates would try to control the
business” the papers, which
were obtained by People
magazine, say.
Pitt is seeking damages
and the cancellation of
the the sale of Jolie’s share.
They separated in 2016,
with Jolie saying she had
sued for divorce “for the
health of the family”.
Jolie has yet to comment
on the matter.Adam Sage Paris
The château in Provence
was bought by Angelina
Jolie and Brad Pitt in 2008Billionaires and Hollywood stars
owning opulent villas on Italy’s Lake
Como have long been able to rely on the
discretion of neighbours who turn a
blind eye to displays of excessive wealth.
But the month-long closure of a large
public mansion and its gardens to pre-
pare for the lavish wedding celebration
of a British hedge fund tycoon and Tory
donor has proved one party too far for
some residents.
Their patience snapped when Alan
Howard, 58, paid €1.3 million to Como
town council to shut down Villa Olmo,
an 18th-century lakeside mansion, for
almost a month in the run-up to June 25
when about 250 guests will attend his
party.
A floating dock will be set up on the
lake to welcome guests arriving by mo-
tor launch as Howard, who is worth £1.
billion, celebrates his marriage to his
second wife Caroline Byron. He mar-
ried the American in 2020.
Villa Olmo, which was bought by the
council in 1924 for public use, has been
used for weddings in the past, but what
has prompted local anger this time is
the number of days it will be shut and
the closure of the parkland behind it.
“The parkland is the most beautiful
stretch of greenery in Como — locals
love to run and walk dogs there, and
it’s an important tourist attrac-
tion, so sealing it off for a month
in June has upset people,” said
Davide Cantoni, a reporter at
local news site Comozero.
Como council’s culture chief,
Livia Cioffi, said: “Shutting
down the property
for 27 days was poss-
ibly too much.
When there was
an Indian wed-
ding at the villa a
few years back
they only took it
over for two
weeks.”
Organisers of
Howard’s party
have also been
given the use of
parking spaces
around the villa, ril-
ing local businesses.
Maurizio Traglio, a
local councillor, de-
plored the closure. He
told local newspaper La
Provincia: “Our town is
not in default or in diffi-
culty and does not need
to make sacrifices or ac-
cept extreme measures
to pay off debts. We have
a surplus, we have
money, we don’t even
know how to spend it.”
Cioffi disagreed. “We
have cash for spending pro-
jects but this money will bemuch needed for paying day-to-day ex-
penses like the wages of police and rub-
bish collectors,” she said.
She claimed that the row had been
whipped up by local politicians before a
mayoral election on Sunday. “Without
the election this would never have been
stirred up,” she said.
Howard, the founder of hedge fund
Brevan Howard, who reportedly
earned £56 million last year, knows thearea well after purchasing a villa on
Lake Como, and he has gained a local
reputation for philanthropy after do-
nating €330,000 for street improve-
ments in the lakeside town of Bellagio.
A source close to Howard said: “Alan
has made different donations and
helped with things around the commu-
nity for a number of years.”
In the UK he also supports homeless
charities, funds education about theTrouble and strife at villa wedding
Lake Como locals are
kept out of the grounds
of a mansion hired by a
billionaire for a month,
writes Tom Kington
notindefault i dVilla Olmo, bought by Como town council in 1924,
has been closed to the public so the hedge fund
founder Alan Howard can celebrate his marriageALAMY; BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGESA match made in heaven: celebrities and Italy
George Clooney, who
owns a villa on Lake
Como, married the
human rights barrister
Amal Alamuddin during
a four-day celebration in
Venice in 2014. The
ceremony took place in
the 16th-century Aman
Venice hotel on the
Grand Canal. Among
the guests were Cindy
Crawford, Bono and
Anna Wintour.Tom Cruise married
Katie Holmes at
Odescalchi Castle on
the shore of Lake
Bracciano in 2006.
Guests included Victoria
Beckham, Jennifer
Lopez and Will Smith.
The marriage ended in
June 2012, when
Holmes filed for divorce.
In 2014, the reality TV
star Kim Kardashian
and the rapper KanyeWest spent a reported
£245,000 renting the
16th-century Forte di
Belvedere in Florence
for their wedding, in
which they exchanged
vows in front of a 20ft-
high wall of flowers.
Andrea Bocelli
serenaded the bride as
she walked up the aisle
on the arm of her
stepfather, Bruce (now
Caitlyn) Jenner.