£15m Brand's very unsocialist business empire

Russell Brand at the GQ Men of the Year awards: His business interests include a controversial film partnership scheme offering tax breaks to investors

As befits his taste for only the very best of things, Russell Brand’s new home in the Hollywood Hills is a sumptuous affair of sunlit rooms and period vaulted ceilings that hark back to the golden days of the movies.

Owned by Laurence Olivier in the Thirties, it has its own cinema, plus five bedrooms and five bathrooms (a lower bath-to-bed ratio is absolute social death in such a wealthy enclave).

Of an evening, Brand can recline amid the scent of oleander trees on a candlelit balcony, with its own outside bar offering stunning views of the twinkling city below. As well as an estimated £15 million in the bank, he became the proud owner of the white-painted Los Angeles pad earlier this month.

So how does this fit in with his ranting rallying cry on Newsnight last week for a ‘socialist egalitarian’ revolution, an end to ‘massive economic disparity’ and belief that ‘profit is a filthy word’?

One suspects that last assertion, however, might come as something of a surprise to the ‘high- net-worth individuals’ that Brand is currently trying to charm into investing in his new film. After all, as well as offering the potential for big returns on their stakes in the movie, Brand’s company is also promising, I have learned, that most unsocialist of sweeteners — massive tax breaks of up to 60 per cent — for those willing to put up their cash.

All of which leaves the revolutionary Mr Brand open to accusations of raging hypocrisy.

Not least, I can reveal, because the model for his company’s plans to raise the cash to finance the project, a documentary called Happiness, is a controversial film partnership scheme. The firm helping to finance Brand’s film is called Mayfair Film Partnership Limited (MFP), and is based in the same building as a hairdresser’s in Weston-super-Mare. The comedian is listed at Companies House as one of its directors, along with his UK manager and UK business manager.

This week, I contacted Brand’s business manager Andrew Antonio to ask him about the venture. Before clamming up, he told me: ‘It’s a film fund a bit like Ingenious.’

Ingenious Media offers a controversial way for the rich to make tax-efficient investments in potential Hollywood blockbusters. Last week, a High Court judgment revealed such schemes were described as nothing more than ‘scams for scumbags’ by Britain’s former top taxman.

Dave Hartnett, who ran HM Revenue & Customs until last year, made the comments while discussing Patrick McKenna, a former adviser to Ed Miliband who now runs Ingenious Media.

His damning assessment was revealed in a failed bid by McKenna to sue HMRC for breaching his human rights by providing private information to a newspaper.

It is not the first time that Ingenious — which strenuously denies claims it has helped rich individuals avoid millions of pounds in tax — has come in for criticism. In February this year, the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee named the firm as being among companies that exploit government tax breaks intended to encourage the film industry.

It must be pointed out that none of this is against the law. Mr Brand’s representative said that ‘MFP had encouraged investment in it through an EIS scheme’, but that these Enterprise Investment Schemes are ‘not tax avoidance schemes’ and not the sort that had been challenged by HMRC.

Look a bit closer and holier-than-thou Brand’s lavish lifestyle and his banging of the drum for the downtrodden masses starts to look more than a little hollow



He pointed out that Brand himself is not an investor and ‘does not benefit from tax relief’.

But how embarrassing for a loud-mouthed Leftie like Russell Brand that his own business manager should link him to such a rampantly capitalist concern.

In fact, look a bit closer and holier-than-thou Brand’s lavish lifestyle and his banging of the drum for the downtrodden masses starts to look more than a little hollow.

Certainly guests at the Savoy, where he is a regular visitor on his jaunts back home from Los Angeles, might look askance at his man-of-the-people routine.

Not least because when he visited the swish London establishment at New Year, he was spotted making use of one of the Savoy’s butlers to do some belated Christmas shopping for him in the hotel shop. Likewise, he is equally fond of the Dorchester, where rooms start at more than £400 a night.

Life of luxury: When Brand returns to the UK he tends to stay at London's Savoy Hotel, where he was spotted making use of one of the Savoy¿s butlers to do some belated Christmas shopping for him around New Year's

Such extravagance is made possible by a network of business ventures set up to cash in on his bankability.

In the UK, Brand is the director of three separate entertainment companies, Mayfair Film Partnership, the colourfully titled Pablo Diablo’s Legitimate Business Firm, and another called One Arm Bandit Limited.

Mayfair turned over more than £1.5 million last year, making close to £800,000 for its shareholders. Latest accounts for the latter two firms, meanwhile, show they turned over more than £370,000 last year, which means Brand’s British businesses alone grossed close to £2 million.

Profiting: Brand performs in his latest tour, dubbed Messiah Complex, at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. Tickets cost a hefty £65 plus booking fee

But the really big money is to be found in Hollywood, where Brand remains hot property and can command up to £5 million a movie.

Two years ago, he and his manager, fellow Briton Nik Linnen, set up production company Branded Films, which operates from offices at the Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, California. At the same time Brand negotiated a lucrative ‘first-look’ deal with Warners which gives the studio exclusive rights to any of his future projects.

To add to his bank balance, Brand is working on the third instalment of his autobiography My Booky Wook after agreeing to extend his £1.8 million deal with publishers HarperCollins.

His latest stand-up world tour, entitled Messiah Complex, which sees him appearing on stage here this week, also takes in America, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine.

Though how charging up to £65 for a ticket, plus booking fees, sits with his proclamation that ‘profit is a filthy word ’ is anyone’s guess.

What is beyond doubt is that Brand has already become a card-carrying member of the richest strata of society that he professes to so despise.

(It’s intriguing to learn, however, that the same cannot be said of his father, Ron. In August, 67-year-old Brand Snr — a former photographer with whom Russell has had an often fractured relationship — appeared before a bankruptcy court in Surrey after racking up £13,000 in unpaid rent on a flat in Camden, North London. He is said to have refused to ask his famous son for help.)

Brand bought the Los Angeles house in the name of a trust run by his U.S. business manager Lester Knispel (perhaps, given his rant about the haves and the have-nots, Brand himself is also shy about being seen to be investing in such a smart address).

Mr Knispel, who also represents the likes of vastly rich reality TV star Kim Kardashian, is said by another of his clients, former basketball player Shaquille O’Neal, to be a ‘tax genius’.

Friends say that when Brand settles into his new home, the comedian will install a Mexican housekeeper named Gabby and a gardener called Polo.