The latest project of the gold magnate Peter Munk is a seaside resort and tax haven for fellow billionaires in the post-Soviet backwater of Tivat, Montenegro. A delirious tour of a world of champagne-drenched parties, supersize yachts and the recession-proof Ultra-High Net Worth Individual
Captain Fantastic: Peter Munk on his 40-metre yacht, the Golden Eagle, which has a full-time staff of five. (Image: Jim Ross)
There are birthday parties, and then there was Nathaniel Rothschild’s party this past July. The financier, scion of the prominent banking family and future baron was turning 40 and spent £1 million on the weekend-long extravaganza. The venue: Porto Montenegro, a newly developed luxury resort and marina in the Montenegrin coastal town of Tivat, on the southeast side of the Adriatic Sea. It was the sort of gathering that marks the end of an era or the birth of an empire—and in a way, for Europe’s youngest and smallest democracy, it was both.
Four hundred guests arrived at the village airport on private jets or stepped off the fleet of super-yachts that washed ashore from the world’s most glamorous tax havens—the Grenadines, Gibraltar, Grand Cayman. The attendees were described in the Guardian society pages as “200 ugly rich people and their poorer but more attractive partners,” or, as one guest more generously put it, “plutocrats and the women who love them.” A number of the partiers were so fantastically rich they could bankroll whole armies (which the birthday boy’s family, in its heyday, once did): Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (who arrived on his £70-million yacht, the Queen K); the wealthy Egyptian Sawiris family (who have embarked on their own Montenegrin development nearby); King Leruo Molotlegi, ruler of a tiny, platinum-rich part of South Africa, who hit the dance floor in a fabulous dashiki; British politician Lord Peter Mandelson; Jimmy Choo honcho Tamara Mellon; the historian Niall Ferguson and his Dutch-Somali partner, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist critic of Islam. There was a healthy smattering of European royalty, as well as members of the Guinness and Goldsmith clans.
Munk bought the Port of Tivat for €155 million. His co-investors include two Rothschilds and the Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska
While the guests swallowed gallons of Taittinger around Porto Montenegro’s 215-foot-long infinity pool (decorated with floating disco balls imported specially from London), the actress-turned-DJ Michelle Rodriguez presided over the turntables. The dancing continued until the early morning hours.
Surveying the scene with a paternal pride was Peter Munk, the billionaire octogenarian, Holocaust escapee, philanthropist and chairman of the world’s largest gold mining company. Munk is the leader of a small but significant exodus of Torontonians to the rapidly expanding Porto Montenegro. This tribe, who have affectionately dubbed themselves Munkistanis, either went there to work for Porto Montenegro or have started side businesses (restaurants, interior design, wine distribution, banks) to cater to the growing numbers of yacht tourists that Porto Montenegro is drawing. The resort is Munk’s vision, and he’s the main investor. A slice of Yorkville on the Adriatic.
i was in canada a long long time ago . there i felt and experienced, grandeur on a non-european scale, bloody cold weather bloody early on (qeubec minus ten in late september one year down at the bottom of the town ) an almost pathetic and totally unexpected need to “copy europe ” but a europe from two hundred years ago (quebec french ) totally off the wall glorious disregard and irrevence (toronto ) those forests those wolves that passion for the wilderness, big seaport (montreal ) russian speakers and now you are going to chuck it
November 8, 2011 at 1:57 am | by JULIE HARPUMabout all over our six thousand years of history, our bridge on the drina (ivo andric ) nobel prize winner, our phoenicians, our iliad, our odesseys, our homer, our pelepponese,our greek tragedies and intricate histories; well, hellzapoppin,we need your illiteracy, your lack of history, your barefaced ignorance and helpful we had nothing on the slate to wipe clean … nat rothschild’s mummy is canadian,that flaming red hair, that flaming cheek, that flaming …… everything ….. party on goodies we need this stage in our lives come come and give us your everything, up the celebration and up everything
Interesting article with a lot more information than what you can usually read about the Porto Montenegro story. A full press review (since 2005) on the project can be read on the “Montenegro Tribune” website’s press review.
November 8, 2011 at 12:12 pm | by Montenegro TribuneNothing to envy about, if a person makes billions from his own country who gave them shelter, freedom, opportunities to make as much money that a person can ever dream …plus many many more things one can do compare with many oppressed countries, and then when they are rich move to another country for tax haven. Hello!, isn’t it’s time to share the wealth like any of your country men by paying your fair share of the taxes like anyone else.
Another hypocrite!!!
November 8, 2011 at 12:52 pm | by BaboonOh man, who cares, really?
November 8, 2011 at 1:07 pm | by RAJ“A one-time Soviet navy base” …again and again!
Tivat was NEVER Soviet navy base, it was ex Yugoslavia’s navy base and Yugoslavia NEVER belonged to the Warsaw pact!!!!
November 8, 2011 at 6:24 pm | by LocalI know you are trying to get all Russians down to Adriatic, but PLEASE don’t create “new history”!
greetings from Tivat, Montenegro. we love Peter and his rich friends because they are helping our community. we would rather have your private country than this fake republic of Montenegro. viva la Peter Munk for 100 years more.
November 8, 2011 at 8:34 pm | by NikolaWho gives a fuck….
November 8, 2011 at 9:41 pm | by EveryoneHe’ll be dead soon anyway….
November 8, 2011 at 9:43 pm | by Joe SchmoAn interesting and (mostly) correct article – as one of the posters above pointed out there seems to be an excessive use of the word “soviet” in the text and this is absolutely incorrect as Montenegro (i.e. ex Yugoslavia) was a non-unaligned country with it’s own (pretty big) military and not a member of NATO/Warsaw pact.
Also, it’s interesting to observe that to the writer of this article the now luxury yacth marine had “ugly” begginings (when it was a massive shipyard building big military ships/submarines) – one would imagine that to the people of that area who had worked at the docks for generations and were proud of their technical know how this may be just slightly insulting and their opinion would be just a bit different (“once we built great marine vessels and now it’s the rich and the shameless and their bimbos etc”)
In any case, the show must go on, and the marina certainly seems like it has potential to be a big commercial success – what comes with it for the once quiet area of Bay of Kotor) god knows, but it is likely that in 20-30 years it may look just as overpopulated as Antibes, Monaco et al do today…
November 9, 2011 at 4:52 am | by Simon, ManchesterI am from Montenegro and I live few miles away from Tivat. “Munk bought the Port of Tivat for €155 million.” In Montenegro, official statements for this buy still stands on €3.5 million!!!
November 9, 2011 at 6:27 am | by Vladimir MontenegroWe have great corruption problem in here and that means Munk has been involved in criminal actions with Djukanovic as ex premier!
Will anyone read and comment this text!!!???
@Leagh McLaren, Please read your history before you write another article, obviously nobody is controling her in publishing department ,Adriatic is not post Soviet,for your information is part of Mediterrenean….
November 9, 2011 at 6:48 am | by JoeThe title of the article is a bit delusional! This “stan” extension usually refers to the Central-Asian former Soviet Union states. Average Canadian who doesn’t have a clue where Montenegro actually is may probably have wrong impression about it! Check the map instead…South Europe, just between Italy and Greece
November 9, 2011 at 7:39 am | by monteskyI just like to say that whoever wrote this article doesn`t have a clue about Montenegro and its history. I see that everybody is commenting on “soviet”… So I have one question, how is possible that anybody is going to consider his article as serious one if you can read such things in it??? I now that half of Canadians/Americans are illiterate, uneducated so even this little knowledge is too much for them. Regarding Peter Monk, he did a lot for Tivat. At least now looks like town. The good thing is that he is still investing, and town is growing every day. Hopefully he`ll continue like this. Leah McLaren please learn some history, don`t create new one.
November 9, 2011 at 9:11 am | by RajkoThis article perpetuates a few misconceptions about the “Porto Montenegro” project which are worth clearing up, while glossing over the type of individual that Peter Munk is and who his business partners are in this venture locally.
(1) The land and contents were bought for 3.5-million, while the actual value was $155-million. Even with the ‘environmental’ clean-up and severance payments that Munk gave out, he’s still paid FAR LESS than the actual amount that the base and the property is worth.
(2) Some have welcomed Munk locally, but many are upset at the environmental devastation brought about by yacht’s and cruise ships that dump their waste in Kotor bay, thus disrupting its sensitive ecology. Furthermore, Kotor and its surrounding towns have become depots for the cocaine trade into Western Europe. The drug trade is taking off now that the elite is there.
(3) Milo DJUKANOVIC is named in investigations in Bari and Naples (Italy) as well as in the Canton of Ticino (Switzerland) as being the ‘capo di tutti capi’ for organizing smuggling activities during the 1990s that brought contraband cigarettes, weapons, drugs, and smuggled humans into the EU using Montenegro as a transit route. His associates where the Napolitan Camorra and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita crime organizations. The Ban brothers, Vesko Barovic, Aco Djukanovic and other ‘businessmen’ / ‘tycoons’ – who made their millions during this period and are linked to Milo Djukanovic – have benefitted from Munk and his friends in various ways.
(4) Munk now plans to make millions off of a cast of shady characters that are buying property and laundering their money in the region: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_17/b4225081076010.htm.
(5) “Trickle down” effects generally don’t work. Look at most tourism hot-spots for the super rich. Local unemployment in Montenegro is still around 20% according to the latest labor force surveys. The average net salary is some 500 euros/month, while prices – because of Munk and his friends – are skyrocketing (the average household of four needs about 750 euros/month to meet basic household needs).
And yes, Tivat was never a “Soviet-base” nor does the term ‘stan’ have any relevance for the Balkans. I realize Toronto Life is a ‘society’ magazine, so it’s par for the course to glamorize the very unglamorous reality that enables places like Porto Montenegro to exist…
November 9, 2011 at 9:47 am | by ArgosMunk’s security in Papua New Guinea wasn’t accused of “sexual assault” but of “gang rape” according to Human Rights Watch. Munk called ‘gang rape’ a ‘cultural habit’ (this is the Human Rights Watch report: http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/02/01/papua-new-guinea-serious-abuses-barrick-gold-mine). This is also an individual who has openly praised Augusto Pinochet in the past and whose security forces in Tanzania removed the bodies of killed miners to hide the evidence (http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/996346–bodies-of-men-shot-at-barrick-mine-stolen-and-dumped-by-police-families?bn=1#article).
November 9, 2011 at 11:09 am | by correction