Tags: vatican | corruption trial | london building | bain capital

Vatican Sells London Building at Heart of Corruption Trial to Bain Capital

Vatican Sells London Building at Heart of Corruption Trial to Bain Capital
Pope Francis leads the Holy Mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Basilica. (Stefano Costantino / AP Images)

Friday, 01 July 2022 08:39 AM EDT

The Vatican said Friday it had sold the London building at the center of an ongoing corruption trial to Bain Capital in recent days for 186 million pounds ($223.6 million).

Losses from the deal were covered by Vatican reserve funds, the Vatican said in a statement, adding that donations from the faithful had not been used.

The Vatican signed the contract to sell the luxury building, on Sloane Avenue in Chelsea, London in January.

A trial of 10 people, including a cardinal, reaches its first anniversary later this month. All the defendants have denied wrongdoing.

The real estate venture at its center began in 2014, when the Vatican's Secretariat of State invested 350 million euros ($390 million)in the building, using brokers it later accused of extortion and other financial crimes.

The prosecution told the court in January that the losses totalled more than 200 million euros.

At the corruption trial held at Vatican City in May, the Vatican’s longtime investment banker, Enrico Crasso, testified he repeatedly voiced concerns about a fund that was investing in a troubled London property, but said the Holy See’s secretariat of state insisted on pursuing the deal even as it lost money.

Crasso said he was very much on the sidelines of the London deal, which was at the center of the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial. Prosecutors had accused Crasso and nine other people of fleecing the Holy See of tens of millions of euros and of ultimately extorting the Vatican for 15 million euros to get control of the property.

Crasso, who handled the secretariat of state’s investments for 27 years at Credit Suisse and his own firms, was accused of several counts of embezzlement as well as corruption, fraud and extortion. Crasso denied wrongdoing and testified Monday that in his more than quarter-century of work for the Holy See, the investments he managed always turned a profit.

Friday's statement did not give a definitive figure for the loss. The Vatican corruption trial is ongoing.

($1 = 0.8318 pounds)

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© 2024 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.


StreetTalk
The Vatican said Friday it had sold the London building at the center of an ongoing corruption trial to Bain Capital in recent days for 186 million pounds ($223.6 million).
vatican, corruption trial, london building, bain capital
349
2022-39-01
Friday, 01 July 2022 08:39 AM
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