Find this content interesting and worth supporting?
Donate to ICIJ. Help us continue investigating important global issues. Gifts made today will be matched up to $10,000.
ICIJ’s investigations are supported by readers like you. If you believe journalism can help bring about positive change, join our ICIJ Insiders community by contributing $3 per month - or more!
Your monthly or annual donation will give you the following benefits.
$3-$14/month (or $35-$179/year)
$15-$49/month (or $180-$599/year)
$50/month and above (or $600/year and above)
Width and height of the embed will adapt automatically.
Width of the embed will adapt automatically. Height will be fixed to 750 pixels.
On Dec. 7, 2011, a tax accountant associated with the Pritzker family provided Appleby with a copy of Penny Pritzker’s passport to confirm her identity to enable transactions involving offshore entities that held portions of her family investments.
Two Bermuda-based firms – IAS Holdings and Triton Container International Ltd. – emerge in numerous Appleby files related to Pritzker family transactions.
Pritzker’s investments in the two firms were included in a federal ethics filing in which Pritzker pledged to sell investments to avoid conflicts of interest. Federal ethics law limits Cabinet members’ ability to “personally and substantially” participate in government matters that could affect their financial interests.
Documents show that on June 27, 2013 – two days after her confirmation – Pritzker transferred shares in IAS Holdings and Triton Container to Delaware-registered DRBIT Investors LLC, which Appleby documents identify as being “owned by trusts that are for the benefit of Penny Pritzker's children.” A separate Appleby document lists DRBIT Investors’ mailing address as the same as Pritzker’s investment firm, PSP Capital. On the ethics form Pritzker filed the following year, IAS and Triton are simply listed as having been sold.
Penny Pritzker also showed up in Appleby’s records as shareholder of the Bermuda company THL Ltd. Pritzker’s ethics agreement states that her stake in THL, listed as worth between $500,000 and $1 million, was sold on the same date she transferred shares in IAS Holdings and Triton Container to DRBIT Investors.
Pritzker’s ethics forms value her interest in IAS Holdings at between $15,000 and $50,000 and her shares in Triton Container at between $1 million and $5 million at the time of the sale.
A Bermuda tax assessment sent to Appleby in July 2011 identifies IAS as an “exempted” company, meaning that it is exempt from local taxes, and notes that it will be subject to no new taxes until March 31, 2035.
See allThis ICIJ database contains information on more than 785,000 offshore entities that are part of the Panama Papers, the Offshore Leaks, the Bahamas Leaks and the Paradise Papers investigations. The data covers nearly 80 years up to 2016 and links to people and companies in more than 200 countries and territories.
There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly. Many people and entities have the same or similar names. We suggest you confirm the identities of any individuals or entities located in the database based on addresses or other identifiable information. If you find an error in the database please get in touch with us.
The ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database is licensed under the Open Database License and contents under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Always cite the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists when using this data. You can download a raw copy of the database here.
Help ICIJ investigate
There are legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts. We do not intend to suggest or imply that any people, companies or other entities included in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks Database have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly. Many people and entities have the same or similar names. We suggest you confirm the identities of any individuals or entities located in the database based on addresses or other identifiable information. If you find an error in the database please get in touch with us.
ICIJ is an independent nonprofit news organization that brings journalists together to collaborate on critical in-depth global investigations
We depend on the generous support of readers like you to help us expose corruption and hold the powerful to account
Find this content interesting and worth supporting?
Donate to ICIJ. Help us continue investigating important global issues. Gifts made today will be matched up to $10,000.