UK government takes over former minister Saifuzzaman's property

United Kingdom's government takes over control of property worth 800 million pounds owned by former land minister of Bangladesh Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, amid allegations of amassing shadowy global empire over there, documents show.

Company House, the company-registration authority of the UK government, appointed administrator and receivers for the owning companies recently, sources in the United Kingdom said.

With this, Saifuzzaman, director of the eight companies, lost his authority to make decisions, as the receiver or the administrator takes over management responsibilities of his huge property of an estimated 480 apartments under eight real-estate companies.

Nurul Akbar Shabuj, a journalist based in the UK, confirmed the UK government action after verifying the available data.

He said either this action could have been taken under voluntary request of Saifuzzaman or the UK government took it over on its own to investigate allegations of corruption.

However, it couldn't be ascertained whether the former lawmaker, who had served five years as land minister in the Awami League regime, surrendered all ownerships of his enormous property to the UK government.

It has also been detected that Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who is under investigation by Bangladesh's intelligence and anti-corruption watchdogs following the fall of AL government in the July-August uprising, changed addresses of his companies on April 15, 2025.

A new address of his entire eight companies, located at different places in the UK, has been changed to a single location (351a Green Street London E13 9AR).

An investigation has divulged that a small accounting firm named MN Accountancy & Co is located in this address.

The FE correspondent has obtained video and picture of this firm at the UK site.

It is unusual for such large companies to change address through such small firms.

He appears to have got perturbed over a prospect that the host government may acquire his entire property or the current Bangladesh government may trace those easily.

However, none of his efforts could help him protect the ownership of his siphoned-off money, allegedly looted from Bangladesh's banking system.

The FE correspondent has obtained the documents of notification from the Company House on confirmation of appointment of administers and receivers on entire UK property holdings of the man from Chattogram.

Under the companies, mostly realties, Mr Chowdhury owns nearly 490 flats in the UK. However, the Company House does not have the data as to whether any of the flats sold by Saifizzaman after the purchase.

Earlier, several international media, including Financial Times and Al Jazeera, published investigative reports on shadowy global empire of this former Bangladeshi lawmaker in the UK, the USA and Dubai.

The action, incidentally, comes to light when Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus, the head of post-uprising government, accompanied by Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Ahsan H Mansur and the Anti-Corruption Commission Chairman, is in London on a five-day visit to pursue stolen-asset recovery.

Talking to The Financial Express Wednesday, Dr Mansur said it is internal decision of the UK government and they "give us some indication on proceedings on request but do not disclose all actions".

The central bank governor hopes the UK government will expand its investigation on this.

"It's beginning of the investigation. We want to put pressure to recover our asset," he said.

The action shows that the central bank's effort to recover the stolen assets has started paying off, he notes.

As revealed, the companies owned by Saifuzzaman are ZTZ Property Ventures Limited, Aramit Properties Limited, Rukhmila Properties Limited, ZTS Properties limited, New Ventures London Limited, Sadakat Properties Ltd, Zaria Properties Ltd, and Zeba Properties Ltd,

Of the companies, receivers (action) have been appointed to Aramit Properties, Rukhmila Properties, ZTS Properties, and New Ventures (London) Limited while administrator to ZTZ Properties, Sadakat Properties, Zaria Properties Ltd, and Zeba Properties Limited.

Under ZTS, Saifuzzaman owns more than 250 apartments followed by more than 133 under Rukhmila Properties, over 60 under Aramit, New Ventures over 28, Sadakat over nine, ZTZ more than seven, Zaria two and Zeba one.

Receiver action refers to the process of receivership, where a receiver is appointed to manage a company's assets and operations, typically to recover debts owed to creditors.

Receivership is a legal process initiated when a company is unable to meet its financial obligations, often due to defaulting on loans. In this scenario, a creditor, usually a bank or financial institution, appoints a receiver to take control of the company's assets. The primary goal of the receiver is to liquidate these assets to repay the outstanding debts.

When a company goes into administration, they have entered a legal process (under the Insolvency Act 1986) with the aim of achieving one of the statutory objectives of an administration. This may be to rescue a viable business that is insolvent due to cash-flow problems.

However, none of Saifuzzaman's undertakings was in cash-flow problem.

The appointment of an administrator (a licensed insolvency practitioner) will be made by directors, a creditor or the court to fulfill the administration process.

The administration puts in place a statutory moratorium. This is a 'breathing space' that frees a company from creditor enforcement actions, while financial restructuring plans are prepared to rescue the company as a going concern where possible. This may take the form of a sale to an unrelated party.

Once in administration, as per the legal process, a company can continue to trade. But daily management and control passes from the directors to the appointed administrator.

Within 8 weeks it is the administrator's role to formulate administration proposals. Creditors are then asked to vote by a decision procedure to approve the administrator's proposals.

Administration will end automatically after 12 months unless the administrator asks the court or creditors for an extension.

If a company goes into administration and the business can be saved, some jobs can be preserved.

The company can choose administrator when there are severe cash-flow pressures but the business is fundamentally viable, there's a need to quickly sell the business as it's technically insolvent creditors won't agree to a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) or it's not possible within the immediate timeframe.

Earlier, Al Jazeera reported huge amassed fortunes of the former land minister in the UK which were allegedly purchased by siphoning money from Bangladesh's bank.

Last month, the UK's Financial Times reported Britain's National Crime Agency freezing orders on two London properties owned by the son of deposed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's adviser Salman F Rahman,.

The first of Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman's luxury apartment, located at 17 Grosvenor Square in London, was purchased in 2010 for £6.5 million, the report cited company and property filings.

The other is at Gresham Gardens in north London, which was acquired for £1.2 million the following year, it said.

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