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It’s Time To Talk About the Other Habanos S.A. Shareholder

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In October 2020, Imperial Brands, plc—a publicly-traded British cigarette company—sold its handmade cigar businesses for €1.225 billion (then $1.43 billion), almost certainly a record-setting price for this sort of cigar business.

When Imperial announced the sale, it was immediately clear that whoever was buying it—believed to be from East Asia—did not want to be named. While disclosure laws surrounding publicly traded companies forced Imperial to disclose some details about the transactions, the buyers were simply listed as holding companies.

Fast-forwarding nearly six years, one of the buyers is facing criminal charges around the world as part of an alleged multi-billion-dollar criminal enterprise, while the other co-owner is a holding company in the Gulf.

As the Cuban cigar world continues to play whack-a-mole with an increasing amount of issues related to the majority owner, the minority shareholder has plans to take over the whole thing. If the breadcrumbs are to be believed, a private equity firm with ties to one of the world’s most powerful people could eventually end up as the 50/50 business partner with the communist government for its storied Cuban cigar business.

Imperial’s 2020 Sale

Imperial’s handmade cigar division was the result of decades of mergers and acquisitions, concluding in 2007 with a $22.4 billion deal to buy Altadis, itself born out of a merger between the former French and Spanish tobacco monopolies.

While Imperial sold all the businesses, the deal was split into two separate transactions: all of the American businesses, which Imperial owned outright, would be sold in one tranche, while the non-U.S. assets would be sold separately. There were two transactions, but the buyers were the same and the combined business continued to be run out of Spain for the next few years.

The crown jewel of the purchase was a 50 percent stake in Habanos S.A., the sales and distribution company of Cuban cigars. In short, the new owners were acquiring the rights to be the exclusive 50/50 business partners with the Cuban government in the Cuban cigar monopoly, though the deal did not include any of the Cuban manufacturing side of the business. In addition, the Allied Cigar Corporation sale (the non-U.S. assets) included stakes in every local Cuban cigar distributor around the world, as well as non-Cuban assets such as the VegaFina brand and two factories: Tabacalera de García in the Dominican Republic and Flor de Copán in Honduras.

The Unnamed Owners

A half dozen years later, three names have been tied to the 2020 purchase:

  • Chen Zhi — Founder and ceo of the Prince Group, one of Cambodia’s largest companies
  • Alvin Chau Cheok-wa — Founder and ceo of Suncity Group, once a major player in Macau’s casino business
  • Zhang Hongwei — Former chairman of United Energy Group

Chau was the first to be tied to the deal because the cfo of Suncity was briefly listed on registration documents in Hong Kong. A year or so later, a report in the now-defunct Radio Free Asia tied Chen to the purchase. Last week, Jack Adamović Davies—the same reporter who first linked Chau to the deal—mentioned that Zhang owned more than a quarter of the Allied Cigar Corp. business.

In the last year, who owns what has become an even greater question.

Last October, the U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a sealed indictment against Chen, alleging that he was running a massive criminal enterprise that, amongst other things, ran “pig butchering” scams, a long-play con that involved stealing people’s cryptocurrency assets. To facilitate these scams, authorities allege that Chen was using forced labor in Cambodia and elsewhere, with allegations of kidnapping and violence. In addition, the government alleges that Chen’s operation included a massive money laundering operation, which likely explains how the DOJ ended up with 127,271 bitcoins, once valued at more than $15 billion, as part of this investigation.

To be clear: so far, none of the cigar businesses are alleged to have done anything wrong; rather, one of their owners is facing indictments in multiple jurisdictions for other things. However, American sanctions on Chen’s empire of assets have caused major disruptions to various cigar businesses.

In January, the Cambodian government, once a Chen ally, turned him over to the Chinese government, which has charged him with crimes that carry punishments up to death.

He’s not the only one in Chinese custody. In 2023, a court in Macau sentenced Alvin Chau to an 18-year prison sentence, and he was fined $3.2 billion.

An organizational flow chart provided by Elite Trading Scandinavia AB to authorities in Gothenburg, obtained by Cigarrvärlden.

The State of Chen Zhi’s Stake

Currently, there are two owners of Allied Cigar Corporation S.L.U., the company that serves as the business partner with the Cuban government in Habanos S.A.:

  • 57.1 Percent — Chen Zhi
  • 42.9 Percent — Renovaire Group Holding RSC

Through a web of holding companies, Chen Zhi’s ties to the business can be fairly easily understood. He owns Simply Advanced Limited, based in the British Virgin Islands, which in turn owns 57.1 percent of Allied Cigar Fund LP, based in the Cayman Islands, which eventually ties into Allied Cigar Corporation/Tabacalera. Through that stake, he is also the owner of 28.55 percent of Habanos S.A., the largest single shareholder outside of Cuba.

However, he is not currently in control of what he owns.

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is overseeing the liquidation of various businesses in the British Virgin Islands owned by Chen. That court appointed Interpath, a restructuring firm with a presence in the British Virgin Islands, to oversee this process. Hong Kong business registrations for Asia Uni Corporation no longer list anyone with Chinese surnames; instead, multiple Interpath employees are now listed alongside two existing names.

Beyond the litigation in the British Virgin Islands, there have been legal proceedings in both New York and Hong Kong that are related to the liquidation. Chen’s representatives are fighting the liquidation process, though testimony indicates that no one has communicated with him since he entered Chinese custody.

In June, Judge Martin Glenn, the chief judge of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, rejected a request from Cosimo Borrelli, who claims to have been appointed to oversee some of Chen’s assets, most notably for this story, Simply Advanced Limited, the holding company tied to the Tabacalera S.L.U. assets. Borrelli has since appealed to the non-bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York.

As part of that case, Paul Pretlove, global head of financial services restructuring at Interpath, was deposed in May. Pretlove is also one of the directors of Allied Cigar, the Hong Kong-based company.

He was asked directly whether there had been any attempt to sell Chen’s stake in Tabacalera S.L.U.:

Q. Have you taken any steps to try to sell the objecting debtors’ interest in that the Allied Cigar Corporation?

A. No.

Q. There weren’t any bids solicited or received?

A. There has not been any bids solicited. There have been approaches from a number of interested parties who have expressed an interest in the business, in various ways, whether to provide finance or ultimately to purchase what’s ultimately Simply Advanced’s shareholding in this structure. I’ve had various discussions with people about that, and some of that is the subject of nondisclosure agreements. But my job and my focus in this respect has been to try to stabilize operations, prevent it from going into that full Spanish insolvency process, which I have done. I have prevented that. And I have enabled a level of resumption of manufacturing and distribution that has seen the business start to stabilize, start to return to levels prior to October 2025.

He also testified that Tabacalera S.L.U. was, in his opinion, close to insolvency:

Before I came in as provisional liquidator, the underlying business had filed in December 2025, I believe, a pre-insolvency filing in Spain. And had it not been for our appointment, I’m certain that the cigar business in Spain would have failed. It would have gone into full insolvency. It would have collapsed and its asset value would have been little more than its cash back.

Interpath is not only having to fight off Borrelli’s request to oversee the shares, but also still dealing with Chen-specific problems related to running the business until the courts sign off on a sale process. Multiple Cuban cigar distributors have had banking issues, some earlier this year, but there appears to be more scrutiny following the July 30 decision by the European Union to sanction Chen Zhi.

In the last week, 5th Avenue Products Trading GmbH, the distributor for Germany, Austria and Poland, informed customers that it was pausing shipments and recently filed for its own insolvency.

Renovaire Group Holding RSC

Per Tabacalera, the other co-owner is Renovaire Group Holding RSC.

In February, El Confidencial, a Spanish business publication, described Renovaire, the minority shareholder, as the likeliest buyer of Chen’s stake in the Spanish business. This is in line with what a source at Tabacalera told halfwheel last year: the minority partners “are actively pursuing Mr. Chen Zhi’s total dissociation from Allied Cigar Corporation and Tabacalera, including the purchase of Mr. Chen’s stake.”

While Tabacalera has acknowledged Renovaire as its other co-owner, there is virtually no publicly available information about the company, which is by design. Renovaire is a “Restricted Scope Company,” a type of company that can operate in the Abu Dhabi Global Market. The designation specifically allows for limited disclosure about the ownership structure.

We cannot say who, or whom, Renovaire is, but when trying to piece together the limited amount of information regarding both Renovaire and Asia Uni Corporation, there is one name that connects the various dots: Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

When asked about its ties to Tahnoun earlier this year, a spokesperson for Tabacalera declined to comment.

via the U.S. Mission to the UAE

The Spy Sheikh

Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, pictured left, is one of the world’s most powerful people.

He is part of the House of Nahyan, the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. His father, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, is considered the father of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and was the first president of the country, which has six different ruling families. Since then, the UAE presidency has been passed down to two of Tahnoun’s brothers.

Tahnoun, 57, is the national security advisor for the UAE, hence the Spy Sheikh moniker. However, he also manages an estimated $1.5 trillion dollars of money, both the kingdom’s funds and his own.

Some of his investing roles include:

Tahnoun has also become an increasingly important figure in geopolitics.

After leading a $500 million purchase of a 49 percent stake in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company, he secured a major deal to allow Abu Dhabi to buy prized AI chips from America. In July, Bloomberg described him as the “Iran Troubleshooter.”

Thakran & Darwish

As we reported last year, there are two other directors on the business registrations related to Asia Uni Corporation, the Hong Kong-based company that sits above Tabacalera S.L.U.

Those two names are Ravi Thakran and Fouad Darwish.

Thakran has extensive experience investing in luxury brands and, perhaps more importantly, managing investments for people with lots of money. Previously, he worked for Tata Group, the Indian conglomerate, and later LVMH Group, rising to chairman of LVMH Asia, and launched L Capital Asia, an investment vehicle for the Arnault family behind LVMH. Glitz, a French luxury publication, reported that following L Capital’s merger with Catterton, the new L Catterton helped set up Turmeric Capital.

Turmeric, which was founded in 2016, describes itself as “an Asia-centric consumer sectors focused private equity firm.” It got early investments from the Public Investment Fund, a Saudi sovereign wealth fund, however, its website lists Abu Dhabi before Riyadh and it operates a subsidiary in Abu Dhabi.

There are multiple ties between Tahnoun and Thakran, and, in the last few years, there have been more public ties. Some of those connections include:

  • Thakran is a partner in Alpha Wave, which manages roughly $30 billion of investments in a variety of sectors, but with a special interest in AI. IHC previously listed investments as high as 50 percent in various Alpha Wave-branded entities, but earlier this year, a new IHC subsidiary—also chaired by Tahnoun—announced it acquired a controlling interest in the U.S.-based Alpha Wave business.
  • Earlier this year, Tahnoun purchased a majority stake in Richard Caring’s hospitality empire, which includes venues like The Ivy and Annabel’s in London as well as Delilah in the U.S. The deal was valued at £1.4 billion. Tahnoun was named as the buyer, while Thakran was named as the ceo of Diafa, the IHC affiliate that is managing the newly-acquired businesses.
  • While Thakran used his Turmeric email address, the physical address used by Thakran on the Hong Kong documents is not the same as Turmeric’s Abu Dhabi entity. Instead, it’s an office on the 37th floor of the Addax Port Office Tower. The exact same address comes back to multiple businesses that are outright owned by IHC, including Avenir Investment RSC Ltd, Quantlase International Holding SPV RSC Limited, and West Investments SPV RSC Ltd. Neither Renovaire nor Turmeric Capital appears on IHC’s annual report.

Business listings also show Renovaire Group Holding RSC Ltd as using the same address, though it oddly lists the third floor, which would appear to be a typo. Crowe, a massive professional services company, has an office listed at that same address.

For his part, Darwish also used that exact same physical address on the Hong Kong paperwork.

Darwish is the ceo and managing director of Palm Sports, a publicly-traded company that owns businesses ranging from an MMA promotion to a security company. While it is publicly traded, IHC owns more than 70 percent of the company. Darwish’s LinkedIn page shows him sitting on other boards, but not managing any other non-Palm Sports companies.

Neither Thakran nor Darwish nor IHC returned any of halfwheel’s emails seeking comment.

Turmeric Capital

Ravi Thakran’s ties to the Spanish-based company are hardly the only link between Turmeric Capital and the cigar world.

As we reported last year, Turmeric Capital is also the owner of Tabacalera USA, the other former-Imperial asset. That portfolio includes:

  • Altadis U.S.A., the company that sells the non-Cuban Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta cigars in the U.S.
  • Casa de Montecristo — a chain of high-end cigar lounges
  • JR Cigar — one of the largest cigar retailers in the U.S.
  • Santa Clara — a wholesale division of JR Cigar

While Tabacalera USA has not publicly acknowledged Turmeric, or even a change in ownership, multiple Tabacalera USA employees have privately stated that Turmeric is its owner.

Based on what’s happening in the U.S., if Turmeric were to gain the controlling or outright interest in Tabacalera S.L.U., it would likely mean major changes for the Cuban cigar business.

Turmeric is not behaving like a passive investor in the American cigar business.

Beyond rumors of a significant investment in Tabacalera USA, Turmeric made a massive leadership change in April, letting go of Javier Estades Saez—who had been the ceo of Tabacalera USA for more than a decade—and Pablo Coll, the longtime cfo. Charles Gibb, the ceo of WhistlePig, the Vermont-based distillery, was appointed the new ceo.

It’s the most public indication of how active Turmeric has been at Tabacalera USA, but its involvement is much greater and ongoing. Turmeric employees are said to be regularly on the ground, working with TUSA employees for tasks ranging from store visits to long-term initiatives.

Father Time is Undefeated

It’s been one year since a source mentioned Turmeric Capital, by name, and said that it was an investment vehicle with ties to Tahnoun. Even after a year of research, we still can’t confirm that is the case. After countless hours spent looking at annual reports and court filings for breadcrumbs, it feels like there are more doors that have been cracked open or doorbells that have gone unanswered. When Turmeric is brought up, executives at these various cigar companies pivot to a previous statement; when Tahnoun is brought up, the conversation ends.

In a world of so many unknowns, the one certainty is that eventually, the clock strikes midnight.

There’s so much that is unknown about what’s happening at Habanos S.A. at the moment; this article hasn’t touched on Cuba’s own geopolitical issues. However, time is likely the largest variable as to what happens next.

If Turmeric were to gain complete control of Tabacalera S.L.U. in the next 12 months, it could mean that Fernando Domínguez Valdés-Hevia, who still runs Tabacalera in Spain, could once again oversee the combined operations, just as he did under the ownership of Altadis, Imperial and, up until a couple of years ago, Chen Zhi’s group.

But who knows what another three years of Chen still owning a majority stake in the business might do at the local level, let alone higher up the corporate ladder.

Germany has been the focus for the first half of September, but, spoiler alert, we are already working on investigating a disruption in an even larger market. If it takes multiple years before the liquidators are able to sell Chen’s stake, perhaps Turmeric, as private equity companies are known to do, will exit its position(s), deciding the time is no longer right for this particular investment.

Overall Score

Chen Zhi
Fouad Darwish
Habanos S.A.
Ravi Thakran
Renovaire Group Holding RSC
Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Tabacalera S.L.U.
Turmeric Capital

 

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