The majority shareholder in the consortium that is to invest €18 million into the Marsa Race Track is a partner and Group Director of Henley & Partners Holdings Ltd based in Jersey.

Henley and Partners are the concessionaries of Malta’s sale of citizenship scheme – the Individual Investment Programme (IPP) – which has been quite controversial locally and, to a certain extent, at EU level as well. Back in October 2016, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici revealed that the controversial IIP had generated €310,300,500. The PN had referred to a number of allegations regarding the programme in the past, including that it was being used to buy votes.

Hugh Morshead holds 72,000 shares (of the 100,000 shares issued) in the Malta-registered company called Marsa Race Track Ltd, the consortium which will receive the track concession.

On 22 March this year, the government signed an agreement with Marsa Race Track Ltd for a concession on the Marsa race track. The company, Marsa Race Track Ltd, was also incorporated on the same day. The consortium said that it will develop a state-of-the-art facility for horse-racing that would include a family park. The Prime Minister had argued that this was the largest private investment in the sports sector and that the project would attract of thousands of tourists annually. The Memorandum of Understanding was signed at Castille.

Up until today, only Lawyer Pio Valletta was known to be one of the members of the consortium, but this newsroom can now reveal the others. Apart from Dr Valletta and Mr Morshead, a British national, Kusam Sharma, and an Irish national, Aldred Kenneth Alexander, also hold shares in Marsa Race Track Ltd. In addition, so do two companies: F. Schembri Holdings Ltd (a Maltese-based company holding 5,000 shares) owned by Frank Schembri, and True to Type Ltd (a company based in the Republic of Ireland holding 10,000 shares).

According to the Henley and Partners website, Hugh Morshead is also a qualified accountant and an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and has been based in Jersey for many years. He is also listed as a director of the Maltese Henley and Partners companies.

He has spoken to the international press about the Malta IIP scheme. As an example, the EU Observer reports that Mr Morshead said: “We’ve done a lot of advising to the government in terms of the legal set-up, the promotion and actually setting up our own office in Malta.”

During the MOU signing event, Architect Edwin Mintoff said that once the necessary permits are obtained from the Planning Authority, the project would require around 18 months to complete.

Asked whether or not he would be willing to release the MOU, Dr Valletta told this newsroom that they are not willing to release it at the moment, as there is a confidentiality clause. “It has to be an agreed release. At this stage I don’t think that is the scope at the moment. I don’t think it will be a problem later.” He indicated that once negotiations on the concession agreement start, which will be soon, that would probably be the time that it will be released.

Asked if he would have a problem releasing the MOU if the government has no objections, he said: “We would have no problem. There is no reason why anyone should have a problem, if both parties agree.”