Pilatus Bank says it is “flying the flag for Malta in London”

I really cannot bear the way in which the main players in this major scandal are taking full advantage of people’s inadequate knowledge of how companies work, the difference between a company in Panama and a company in Italy, that a private bank is not the equivalent of HSBC or the Bank of Valletta, and that it is completely outrageous to give a banking licence to a man of 33 just three months after he applies for it – just as it is unheard of for one man to be in sole possession of a private bank.

In what appears to be some kind of PR offensive, Pilatus Bank has contacted several newspapers and offered up its owner, Seyed Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, for interviews. The latest is in today’s Malta Today.

How has the scandal affected the bank and how do you see it recovering, the interviewer asked him. Hasheminejad’s insane response was: “The scandal has not affected the bank’s operations. Everything is operating as normal and all that is in the past. What we need to focus on is the future. Malta is an amazing hub for banking. Let’s get past this stuff and look to the future.”

Let’s leave aside the outrageous lie that the bank is operating as normal and has not been affected by the mammoth scandal. The next bit of his reply bothered me even more.

“For the first time in the history of this country (Malta), Pilatus Bank has ventured out and established a branch in London,” Hasheminenad said. “”It’s your job to make sure that people out there know this. We’re putting the Maltese flag on the private banking map. This remains a Maltese bank, with its future legs in London. This shows commitment. That Malta can be that next private banking hub and the next global financial hub and we have shown it. We can go out and establish and operate a branch and carry the name, the great name of Malta abroad.”

This, too, sounds completely insane – what on earth is he on about? But it’s the “branch in London” bit that really got me. If you run an internet search on Pilatus Bank London, all the links have been rerouted to take you back to Ta’ Xbiex, Malta. They are so much “flying the flag” in London that you can’t even get Pilatus Bank’s address there. I had to get it by asking somebody to research corporate records in the UK: 4, Old Park Lane. When you run a search on that, what you get is some very costly serviced rental office space of the sort taken up by different renters who want a flash address more than they want office space.

While I was in London over Easter, I took cab to there to check it out. It’s a hugely expensive house – almost certainly a price-tag in the double-digit millions. There is nothing on the outside to indicate that it is used as an office – no name-plate, no corporate logo, no flag or emblem, nothing. The only thing that distinguishes it from a residential house is the fact that the front door is kept open, and through the glass door you can see a man sitting behind a rudimentary white counter.

I rang the bell and was buzzed in. The small entranceway in which the reception desk stands is completely white and brown, with nothing on the walls, just a couple of plain chairs, and no names, logos or anything visual of any kind. This did not strike me as lack of care, but rather deliberate and blanket anonymity.

“I’d like to speak to somebody from Pilatus Bank,” I told the man behind the desk. “You what?” he said. “The what?”

“Pilatus,” I said, and got another blank expression.

“Pilatus BANK,” I said.

“Oh yeah, you mean the BANK. They’re upstairs, but there’s nobody there. And I can’t send you up in the lift because all the alarms and things will go off.”

“So when will somebody be there?”

“I have no idea, because I’m just filling in for somebody else. But try coming back tomorrow. Maybe Anna will be back up there.”

“What’s Anna’s second name? Do you have a number I can call for the bank, so that I don’t come up here again for nothing?”

“I don’t know her second name, and I don’t have a number for them.”

I didn’t go back the next day. There wasn’t time. This is the “Pilatus Bank branch flying the flag for Pilatus and Malta in London” that its shady owner, Hasheminejad, spoke about to Malta Today. It is the most deliberately anonymous-but-pricey thing ever outside a Swiss abortion clinic in the 1960s.

There is another address which Pilatus Bank began using on 10th February: 12th floor, 6 New Street Square, which is in the City. I got this address after my return to Malta, and so did not visit.

This is the “Pilatus Bank branch in London” which Hasheminejad told Malta Today about: 4 Old Park Lane. It is completely anonymous, and not even the temporary receptionist near the front door recognised the name when I asked for it.