Gusenbauer is one of the directors and legal representatives of Novia Management Ltd., a company registered in Malta in 2014, along with fellow Austrian Herbert Stepic, the former chief of Raiffeisen Bank International who resigned after his offshore deals were made public by ICIJ and its partners in 2013.
Novia Management is a shareholder of Novia Funds Sicav Plc, a Maltese company that lists among its shareholders Gusenbauer’s former campaign adviser Tal Silberstein, an Israeli entrepreneur who was arrested in August 2017, along with diamond magnate Beny Steinmetz, on charges of money laundering and then released. The companies are registered as investment services and, according to Austrian and Serbian news outlets, have pursued business opportunities in the casino and lottery industry in Austria and neighboring countries.
Gusenbauer said that Novia was a “closed-end investment fund” designed to become the first sector-specific gaming fund managed by industry experts, and he acted as a non-executive board member.
The Fund was incorporated in Malta because it is a very well-known international gaming licensing center, he said. Asked whether he will continue to hold shares in the companies along with Silberstein, he respondend that since both companies are “under a liquidation process and are non-active for almost two years, there is no relevancy to the questions of future shareholding.”
There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. The inclusion of a person or entity in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database is not intended to suggest or imply that they have engaged in illegal or improper conduct. Many people and entities have the same or similar names. We suggest you confirm the identities of any individuals or entities included in the database based on addresses or other identifiable information. The data comes directly from the leaked files ICIJ has received in connection with various investigations and each dataset encompasses a defined time period specified in the database. Some information may have changed over time. Please contact us if you find an error in the database.
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