How Embarrassing

The Telegraph published a hilarious piece the other day which highlighted the danger of comedians going into politics - that people might start laughing at you rather than with you, if you're not careful about the company you keep.  

Russell Brand film on RBS bankers funded by City investors - including former RBS banker

Russell Brand's film about 'financial inequality' is largely funded by high net worth City investors who were able to offset their investment against tax

Russell Brand claims to despise bankers, but relies on them for funding Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images



By Gordon Rayner - The Telegraph

When Russell Brand wanted to film himself confronting bankers about their bonuses, he chose to storm RBS, regarding the bank as the very embodiment of the capitalist system he so despises.

But, not for the first time, Brand has left himself open to accusations of hypocrisy after it emerged the film company he set up is largely funded by City investors - including a former RBS banker.

Brand raised almost £1 million by issuing shares in Mayfair Film Partnership Ltd, the production company making his next film, a documentary called Brand which will explore his ideas on the redistribution of wealth.

At least 11 of the 21 main investors in the company are current or former employees of banks or other financial institutions, while a 12th is a pension fund.

They were all able to claim tax relief by offsetting the money they invested in the shares against their income tax, as part of a government scheme to attract investment in high risk start-up companies.

Brand has repeatedly argued that bankers should pay more tax, and has blamed them for much of the trouble faced by society’s poorest in the wake of the financial crash.

The investors in Mayfair Film Partnership include Tim Vaughan, who worked at RBS in 2007, the year the financial crisis began. According to an online biography of Mr Vaughan, he was part of the RBS Real Estate Syndicate Team, “responsible for structuring and distributing big ticket European real estate loans”. He invested £23,000 in Mayfair Film Partnership in 2009, the year he left RBS.

Mayfair is understood to have been set up to make a film called Happiness, which never got off the ground, before it switched its attention to the new film.

Mr Vaughan told The Telegraph: “I do not wish to comment on this investment nor on Mr Brand…Mr Brand is entitled to the views he had as much as you are entitled to yours. I have no issue with my investment or Mr Brand.”

Earlier this week Brand was accused of being a “bully” by an RBS back office worker after he and a film crew tried to get into an RBS office in London saying he was making a film about “financial inequality”.

Joseph Kynaston Reeves, who found himself locked out with his lunch going cold after security staff locked the doors to keep Brand’s film crew out of the building, wrote a blog describing Brand as a “prancing millionaire” which became an internet sensation.

Mr Kynaston Reeves pointed out that Brand, who is making his film with the director Michael Winterbottom, had picked the wrong building, as the traders he was targeting worked elsewhere. He also pointed out that Brand, with a personal fortune of between £9 million and £15m, was far wealthier than him or any of his colleagues.

Brand was confronted by RBS worker Joseph Kynaston Reeves when he tried to storm an RBS office

The biggest investor in Mayfair, with £225,000 of shares, is the Premier League footballer Wes Brown, while £150,000 of shares are held by a pension fund administered by the pensions firm Hazell Carr.

Other major investors include a former head of international business at Danske Capital, with £100,000 of shares, and a managing director at JP Morgan Chase, with £50,000 shares.

Fellow investors work or have worked at City institutions including Credit Suisse, Dresdner Kleinwort, Bank of Nova Scotia, Societe Generale and Peel Hunt.

Under the Government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme, the investors were able to make their share purchase highly tax efficient.

The EIS, brought in to help smaller high-risk companies to raise finance, enables individual investors to claim tax relief at 30 per cent of the cost of the shares, to be set against their income tax liability for the year in which the investment was made. At the time the shares in Mayfair were sold, the tax relief rate was set at 20 per cent.

Wes Brown, for example, would have reduced his income tax bill by £45,000 in the year he bought his shares. Brand only owns 30 shares in the company.

HM Revenue and Customs specifies that EIS tax reliefs “are not considered to be avoidance of tax”.

Brand threatened to sue the Sun newspaper earlier this month after it accused him of hypocrisy for paying around £76,000 a year in rent for his London home to a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

A spokesman for Brand said he was unavailable for comment.

Meanwhile another of Brand's campaigns appeared to be paying dividends, as the US investors who planned to evict scores of families from the New Era estate in east London are on the verge of pulling out.

Brand joined protestors against the plans by Westbrook Partners, which is now said to be close to selling the estate to an affordable housing provider.