Irish firm linked to raid paid out €4m dividend

The Irish company mentioned in connection with the police raids in Italy paid out a €4 million dividend in 2010, after which the company began to be wound down.

The company’s owners at the beginning of the 2010 financial year were Henry James Fitzsimons, with an address in Belfast, and Antonio Velardo, with an address in Pompei. They both shifted their shareholdings during the year to a Cypriot company called HF AV Holdings Ltd. The company had €10.6 million in its bank accounts at the end of June 2010, according to the accounts.

VFI Overseas Properties Real Estate Agent Ltd, with an address in Dublin, has recently been joined as a third party, by the defendant, in a case in the High Court in Belfast where more than 60 people are suing an Italian lawyer, Gabriele Giambrone, arising from deposits totalling £5 million they paid on property in Italy. A further approximately 30 people from the Republic are understood to be separately concerned about their deposits. VFI operated as a promoter of the property schemes.

A Belfast solicitor acting for Mr Fitzsimons, Dan McGuinness, was reported by the BBC yesterday as saying his client refutes the allegations that have been made in Italy, and has been carrying out a legitimate business as a promoter of properties in southern Italy.

VFI has two subsidiaries, an Italian company, VFI Italia SRL, and an Irish company, Italian Overseas Property Ltd. The directors of the latter were Ercole Antonio Palasciano, of Catanzaro, Italy, and Matthew Charles Stokes, of Dubai.

Mr Fitzsimons is a director of Belfast-based Lagmore Holdings Ltd, as well as HCF Overseas Property Ltd, Dame Court, Dublin 2.