Link to Conservative Friends of Israel for speech

Billionaire Poju Zabludowicz, lives in London. He has donated £70,000 to the Conservative party over the past three years. He is also one of the financial supporters of the Conservative Friends of Israel, which has also given to the party.

Zabludowicz, 55, born in 1953 in Helsinki, Finland, heads the Tamares Group, which has its headquarters in Liechtenstein and has an international property portfolio, including hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. He is also a member of the European Advisory Board of Citigroup, the Board of Directors of GEMS (an Asia Pacific private equity fund) and the Advisory Board of Stratos Ventures - email him at poju@tamares.com

According to Electoral Commission records, Tamares provided £15,000 for Cameron’s leadership campaign in 2005 and has donated £55,000 to Conservative funds in 2006 and 2007.

Zabludowicz has also provided funds for the Conservative Friends of Israel, which in turn has donated nearly £30,000 to the Tory party.

Zabludowicz father, Shlomo, was an Auschwitz survivor, who moved to Finland and later built up the Israeli arms company Soltam. He later diversified into the manufacture of cooking utensils and into property investments.

After Shlomo’s death in 1994, his son took over the business and most of the defence interests were sold. Most of the family fortune is now in property, although Zabludowicz still owns a company in the United States that manufactures training ammunition. Zabludowicz is understood to be nondomiciled in the UK for tax purposes.

The group owns property in downtown Las Vegas that was leased to the Navegante group owned and run by Larry J Woolf an arrangement which appears to have gone belly up.

Interestingly Larry tells Lord Patel he is also a Non Exec of the computer gambling software company Cyberview Technology along with the Chairman Sir Michael Wilkes KCB, CBE who served in the British Army for 35 years reaching the rank of a 4 star General - including Director of Special Forces. On leaving the Army in 1995, he was appointed Governor and Commander in Chief of the Island of Jersey where he served until 2000. Since that time he has become Deputy Chairman and Senior Independent Non-Executive Director of C. I. Traders Limited, a broadly based property and retail company which is the largest employer in the Channel Islands. He takes an interest in the finance industry and is Chairman of Chiltern Holdings (Jersey) Ltd. He maintains his interest in Middle Eastern affairs through his Chairmanship of Britam Defence Ltd. "..a special force in the oil and gas industry." To those who are interested in this sort of thing this website is the sort of website they will find..er..interesting.

His wife, Anita, an interior designer and former art student from Newcastle upon Tyne, (Picture Victoria Miro, Dr Luigi Maramotti, Anita Zabludowicz and Iwona Blazwick at the launch in Venice of MaxMara Women’s Art Prize - Winner Announcement February 2006 ) is an avid collector of contemporary art. The couple opened a gallery in north London last year to display their collection which is housed in a nineteenth century Methodist Chapel in Chalk Farm. A statue from her collection the Zabludowicz Collection, exhibited in Newcastle, (21. Sep - 20. Jan 08 / ends in 15 days BALTIC Centre for Contemporary ArtExhibition | M | North) of a Christ with an erection has given massive offense. ... "Newcastle born Anita Zabludowicz is one of the UK’s most exciting and innovative art collectors. BALTIC presents a selection of work from her extraordinary international collection"


Conservative Friends of Israel has given to a number of Conservative constituency associations, particularly in the run-up to the last election. The organisation, which has given £29,000 to the Tories between 2003-06, is not required to reveal its financial backers. It has targeted constituencies where sitting Labour MPs have been senior figures in Labour Friends of Israel.

Well, Well, Well.

What a fascinating world with fascinating connections.