A £ 100 million loss is what the Holy See expects upon completion of the pending sale of the luxury office building located in central London, which is now the center of international criminal investigations and the fund management process. of the Secretariat of State in which Cardinal Angelo Becciu is also accused.
According to some people familiar with the process - reports the Financial Times on the front page in its European edition - the Vatican is in the final stages of the sale of 60 Sloane Avenue, a building in the London borough of Knightsbridge, to the private equity group Bain Capital. for a sum of around 200 million pounds. Both Bain Capital and Savills, who manages the sale, declined to comment.
The magistrates of the Court of Oltretevere affirm that between 2014 and 2018 senior officials of the Holy See invested a total of 350 million euros for the London building, largely coming from donation funds. In short, the sale should confirm a loss of around 100 million pounds in the Vatican coffers. Vatican prosecutors argue that the money invested in buildings and other investments came from Peter's Pence, into which offerings from Catholics from all over the world flow every year, as aid for the most needy but also for the functioning of the Vatican apparatus.
"The London building, which at some point had to be transformed into a luxury condominium - the City newspaper always remembers -, is at the center of a scandal that has forced the Holy See to completely rethink the management of its finances". The Pope has in fact definitively transferred to APSA (Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See) the management of the assets and funds which, even after the reform, had remained in the hands of the Secretariat of State.
The Vatican trial, which also sees accused international financiers including the former banker Raffaele Mincione and officials of the Holy See, in the hearing of last October 6 was broken into two parts and was partially canceled with the return of part of the documents to the Office of the Promoter of Justice, to proceed with the completion of the investigative documents and the filing of reports and investigative records still missing.
In recent days, however, the defense lawyers have complained that, between "omissions" and arbitrary cuts in the registrations, the material deposited by the prosecutors "is therefore still incomplete" at the deadline set for 3 November last.
(Unioneonline / vl)
