Exclusive – Taibs’ Foreign Property Portfolio
Canadian properties worth in excess of a hundred million dollars
Multi-million dollar complex
Twin glass towers and a swish shopping complex at Preston Square in downtown Ottawa form just part of an enormous foreign property portfolio controlled in Canada by the family of Sarawak Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, according to our exclusive investigations.
These buildings alone are worth at least one hundred million dollars and generate a healthy rental income from some of Canada’s top corporations, including Xerox, Adobe and Sun Life, who rent office space and retail outlets. Numerous Canadian Government Ministries are also listed at the building.
- Preston Square Ottawa – office space and shops
The Preston Square development lies at the centre of the major Canadian property empire run by the developer Sakto, which was founded in the early 1980s by Taib’s college-aged son Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib, his daughter Jamilah and his brother Onn Mahmud. It continues to be managed as a ‘family business’ by his now son-in-law, a Canadian, Sean Murray.
- Commercial Skyscraper – Ottawa’s ‘Xerox Tower’ Complex. Sun Life and Adobe are some of the companies to rent space in this prestige property in Ottawa
Taxpayers in Sarawak are entitled to ask how the Chief Minister’s modest 20,000 Malaysian Ringgit a month official salary has managed to help generate a property empire worth so much. It is also well known that the Taib family own further considerable assets in Malaysia and elsewhere.
