Over
the years, William R. Ponsoldt had earned tens of millions of dollars
building a string of successful companies. He had renovated apartment
buildings in the New York City area. Bred Arabian horses. Run a yacht
club in the Bahamas, a rock quarry in Michigan, an auto-parts company in
Canada, even a multibillion-dollar hedge fund.
Now, as he neared retirement, Mr. Ponsoldt, of Jensen Beach, Fla., had a special request for Mossack Fonseca,
a Panama-based law firm well placed in the world of offshore finance:
How could he confidentially shift his money into overseas bank accounts
and use them to buy real estate and move funds to his children?
“He
is the manager of one of the richest hedge funds in the world,” a
lawyer at Mossack Fonseca wrote when the firm was introduced to Mr.
Ponsoldt in 2004. “Primary objective is to maintain the utmost
confidentiality and ideally to open bank accounts without disclosing his
name as a private person.”
In summary, the firm explained: “He needs asset protection schemes, which we are trying to sell him.”
No comments:
Post a Comment