Pandora Papers
Dutch Minister of Finance
Wopke Hoekstra
Wopke Hoekstra is a former McKinsey & Co. partner with a law degree and an MBA.. He entered politics in 2011, winning election to the Netherlands’ Senate and taking a leading role in the center-right Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party.
Hoekstra continued to work for McKinsey while serving in Parliament on various Senate committees including finance, foreign affairs, and security and justice. He left the consulting firm when Prime Minister Mark Rutte appointed him minister of finance in October 2017.
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Leaked documents show that in 2009, Hoekstra obtained shares in an offshore company, Candace Management Ltd., based in the British Virgin Islands. He acquired more shares in 2013 and 2014, while he was a senator.
Other shareholders, with Hoekstra, in Candace Management include several former and current executives of ABN AMRO Bank, one of the largest banks in the Netherlands. The group includes Tom de Swaan, chairman of the supervisory board for ABN AMRO Bank NV, and Jeroen Harderwijk, a former ABN AMRO director and Candace Management’s largest shareholder. De Swaan was also a non-executive board member for the Financial Services Authority in the U.K.
In 2003, Harderwijk co-founded a high-end safari firm, Asilia Africa, also known as Africanspirit Group. In 2019, Conde Nast Traveler said the safari company was “shaking up the status quo” by hiring women as guides and camp managers.” The article described Harderwijk as Asilia’s managing director.
Candace Management owns 25% of African Spirit Group, and NorFund, a Norwegian government investment fund, owns 32%.
In an email to ICIJ, Hoekstra said he sold his shares in Candace one week before becoming minister of finance.
Records show that as of May 31, 2017, Hoekstra held 627 shares in Candace Management; de Swaan had more than 1,500 shares; and Harderwijk owned more than 15,300.
https://projects.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/power-players/en/player/wopke-hoekstra