Prince Andrew has endured yet another setback as Urramoor Limited, the firm responsible for managing his private investments, has shut down. The disgraced Duke of York had exercised “significant control over” this company, which now finds itself out of business just a year after being rescued by an anonymous donor.
Last week’s published accounts disclosed that Urramoor Limited, burdened with debts amounting to £208,000, managed to achieve solvency last year. This turnaround came after securing £210,000 from an unnamed source in December 2023. However, the firm’s track record had been far from impressive. Since its establishment in 2013 by the 64-year-old prince under the name HRH Andrew Inverness, it failed to turn a profit in any of the nine sets of accounts it filed. This was 18 months after Andrew was stripped of his UK trade envoy role due to his association with paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
In addition to the investment firm’s woes, other financial concerns have emerged. Documents filed last week indicated that over £230,000 has been withdrawn from Andrew’s Pitch@Palace initiative, modeled after the popular TV show Dragon’s Den. Accounts lodged with Companies House on December 30 revealed a significant drop in the cash held by the initiative, with the amount halving from £454,979 to £220,990 during the financial year ending March 31.
The future of this platform, designed to connect businesses with investors, has been thrown into uncertainty following revelations that a man linked to the programme in China, Yang Tengbo, 50, was allegedly a spy. Yang has since been barred from the UK on national security grounds, and the Royal Household is currently probing claims that Andrew invited him into Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, and St James’s Palace.
Amid these financial and security issues, questions have been mounting about how Prince Andrew can afford his lifestyle. Notably, his residence at Royal Lodge in Windsor has come under scrutiny since his brother, King Charles, cut off his funding. There is also much speculation surrounding his seemingly luxurious way of life. In 2007, the buyer of his home in Sunninghill Park, Berks, was discovered to be related to a former Kazakh president, who paid £3 million above the asking price.
Moreover, it was reported that in 2017, Andrew took out a £1.5 million loan with Luxembourg’s Banque Havilland, which was repaid just 11 days later by firms associated with the bank’s founder, David Rowland. Experts have called for an investigation into Andrew’s business dealings, especially in the wake of the “spy” scandal, to shed light on the sources of his murky finances.