Principality of Monaco. In a few years the price of real estate has gone from 2.9 million euros to a little less than 10 million. Build to demolish and build more …
While the magazines are scuffling over the rumors of a possible divorce request for Princess Charlene, the second episode of Le Monde on alleged real estate traction scandal in the Principality of Monaco.
Yesterday the first that you can also read here on Affaritaliani.it
Basically in the city-state of Monaco there would be a war between ruling groups and a system to “inflate” the real estate mechanism: in the Principality of Monaco, buildings would be continuously built but to be demolished and rebuilt at a later time, “taller, more striking, more profitable”. Perhaps a coincidence but years ago in Munich there was talk of brick fever, describing the incredible growth of the local market, with apartments of new construction whose price went from 2.9 million euros to a little less than 10 million.
Monaco is a center of attraction for the richest men on Earth. According to the WealthInsight observatory, of the 38,000 inhabitants of the Principality, one in three is at least a millionaire. According to the 2019 Knight Frank Wealth Report, the Principality is home to over 12,000 millionaires. In 2020 Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest man and petrochemical magnate, announced his move to Monte Carlo.
The second episode of Le Monde stages the bitter conflict between the very wealthy owner of a real estate company, Patrice Pastor, and some very influential members of Prince Albert’s entourage, at the center of the first episode, and the alleged reasons for these conflicts: four figures accused by a “crow” who has published online the confidential documents he speaks of Le Monde “to form a sort of ‘G4’ that is both discreet and sprawling, with Albert II in the background, naive and antiquated sovereign ”.
According to the French daily, the four are Alberto’s trusted men who actually move Monaco: “Didier Linotte, the French president of the Monegasque Supreme Court (the local Constitutional Court); Claude Palmero, chartered accountant, but above all confidant and administrator of the assets of Prince Albert II; Laurent Anselmi, Chief of Staff of the Sovereign; Thierry Lacoste, also French, Albert’s lawyer and childhood friend ”. For those concerned, targeted, the accusations would be only “rubbish” put in place to destabilize the Principality. They have already moved to file a complaint.
But behind the scenes of Monaco, a battle has been going on for years, a clash between billionaires, between powerful entrepreneurs and administrators of a “tax haven” which formally does not even appear as such. If Patrice Pastor is described by Le Monde as if at the center of a sort of trench warfare, in which he tries not to miss the blows to the detriment of the other two real estate groups, Caroli and Marzocco, the leaders of the state would lead the way.
Pastor (described as PP) “according to his opponents”, tell the journalists Di Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme who wrote the two episodes, “he would have been furious to see so many real estate projects pass under his nose on the return of his two rivals, the enterprising , but more modest, the Caroli and Marzocco groups ”.
There are three real estate groups that really affect the local market. The largest is precisely the Group Pastor, historical group, made up of multi-billion dollar Monegasques and then there are two groups of Italian origin: Marzocco and Caroli.
Pastor would be angry as the city-state government seeks in weaken its power to the benefit of the other two groups. But what is the main purpose of the dossiers made public? Maybe show a market that is somehow tainted by an excess of upside? Whose hand is it that arms the sites that have published the dossier?
There would be hundreds of emails showing an under power between plots, permits and appointments that would increase the weight of the administration to the advantage of the two groups minor real estate to the detriment of Pastor. Moreover, the Pastor and Marzocco families are also related. To join in 2012 the young Valentina Marzocco and Jean-Baptiste Pastor in a sumptuous marriage that however did not extinguish the flame of rivalry.
But this of the dossier unearthed by Le Monde it is not the first relevant news on Monegasque real estate that has had relevance across the border.
The one in 2020 was sensational: the sentence imposed by the Supreme Courtor, the highest court of the Principality of Monaco, in the dispute between the State and the Caroli Immo, for 150 million. After having approved it, a project of the Caroli group was reconsidered and definitively set aside by the Minister of State who would have recognized potential risks for the regular running of the Formula One Grand Prix. The Court sanctioned the state.
The Marzocco family, on the other hand, has put itself on display over time especially for the Tour Odeon in the east area of Montecarlo, 160 meters high, cost 500 million euros, the second tallest skyscraper in Europe.
The goal of those who govern Monaco would not be to destroy anyone, much less the Pastors, but to put an end to their monopoly. By increasing the power of the two minor groups, the power of the state grows.
In fact, that of Albert II increases, at the head of a city of billionaires but who, according to Le Mondedeclares “only” 1 billion euro of assets.
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