VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican said on Friday it had sold the luxury London building at the centre of an ongoing corruption trial to Bain Capital in recent days for 186 million pounds ($223.6 million).
Losses from the deal were covered by Vatican reserve funds, the Vatican said in a statement, adding that donations from the faithful in a fund known as Peter’s Pence had not been used.
The sale of the building on Sloane Avenue in Chelsea, London, marks a turning point in a sordid chapter in the Vatican’s investment strategies.
A trial of 10 people, including a cardinal, reaches its first anniversary later this month. All the defendants have denied wrongdoing.
The real estate venture at its centre began in 2014, when the Vatican’s Secretariat of State invested 350 million euros ($390 million)in the building, using brokers it later accused of extortion and other financial crimes.
The prosecution told the court in January that the losses totalled more than 200 million euros. Friday’s statement did not give a definitive figure for the loss.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Giulia Segreti, Jan Harvey and Alex Richardson)
