Dreamland lease assigned for charge to offshore company in Caymen Islands?

The Cayman Islands

There was good news from Dreamland over the weekend as it celebrated its first birthday. The park lifted the entrance fee a move met with widespread approval. But news has emerged today that an offshore company, Arrowgrass Masterfund Limited, based in the Cayman Islands has been assigned the lease to Dreamland from operators, Sands Heritage Limited on May 27th in return for the sum of £600,000. The charge document is available to download for free on the Companies House website.



The lease was signed on May 21st 2015 between Thanet District Council and Sands Heritage Limited for the Dreamland site.




Sands Heritage Limited recently went administration owing creditors just under £3m. The agreement states Arrowgrass Masterfund Limited loan is for £600,000. 



Who are Arrowgrass Masterfund Limited?Well, we don't know, because the company is registered off shore. But we have heard of Arrowgrass Capital Partners LLP and this is listed as their correspondence address in the UK.

Arrowgrass Capital Partners LLP is the hedgefund that Sands Heritage Limited boss, Nick Conington lists on his Linkedin  page as having worked for from 2008 to 2012. Arrowgrass Capital Partners grew out of the market leading convertible bond franchise at Deutsche Bank.

Source: Linkedin

Companies House records also show a further charge of £1m to Sands Heritage Limited from June 1st 2015 from a Christopher John Mahoney who is based in the Netherlands. Mahoney and Conington were both part of the winning Oxford University boat race crew in 1980.

Oxford Cambridge boat race crews 1980

Mahoney, is a retired director of agriculture trading of the world's largest commodities trading company, Glencore. A headline in the Independent stated:

"We'll make a killing out of food crisis, Glencore trading boss Chris Mahoney boasts" With Mahoney quoted:

"The environment is a good one. High prices, lots of volatility, a lot of dislocation, tightness, a lot of arbitrage opportunities."We will be able to provide the world with solutions... and that should also be good for Glencore."

Surely, questions now arise:

- What does the agreement between Arrowgrass Masterfund Limited and Sands Heritage Limited mean for the future of Dreamland as an amusement park? 

- Has the future operation of Dreamland been transferred to an offshore company? What role did freeholders and funders Thanet District Council play in the transfer? 

- What role do funding partners The Dreamland Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund play?

- Is Dreamland as an amusement park safe from being developed into anything other than an amusement park?

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