Angola said its sovereign wealth fund recovered $3.35 billion of assets that were under the management of Quantum Global Investment Management AG, bringing the scandal of alleged corruption and conflict of interest at the state-run investor nearer to a close.
Fundo Soberano de Angola now has control of “all financial and non-financial” assets, the state prosecutor’s office said in an emailed statement. It included about $2.35 billion of financial assets held in U.K. and Mauritius banks, and $1 billion of real estate holdings in hotels, gold mines, farms and resorts in the country and abroad, it said.
Prosecutors have dropped all charges against Quantum Global Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais and he has been released from prison, the state prosecutor’s office said.
Angolan President Joao Lourenco is seeking to recoup billions in state assets that he says were stolen or misappropriated before he took office in 2017. Jose Filomeno dos Santos, the son of former President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, used to run the wealth fund but he was removed from the role in January 2018, according to court papers.
The fund sued him, saying he’d appointed the Swiss-based Quantum group of companies, which are 95 percent-owned by his friend and business partner Bastos de Morais, to invest and manage $5 billion on behalf of the wealth fund even though it lacked the experience to do so, according to court documents. Dos Santos and Bastos de Morais said the allegations were spurious and flawed, and that they were the victims of political change after Dos Santos’s father was replaced as president.
Source: Bloomberg
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