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Nigel Farage attended Davos on a pass sponsored by the family office of Iranian billionaire Sasan Ghandehari, which told the World Economic Forum that the Reform UK leader had advised the company since 2018.
The British politician, who has criticised the event as being out of touch, is named on the WEF attendee list as affiliated with Ghandehari’s HP Trust. Ghandehari also paid for Farage’s hotel costs in Davos.
HP Trust made a late request to the WEF for Farage to join its delegation in Switzerland as an adviser to the firm, which is one of the sponsors of the annual meeting in Davos, according to people familiar with the matter.
The little-known company, which says it has a portfolio of assets worth $10bn, told the WEF that Farage had been an adviser for the past eight years, the people said.
Farage has not yet disclosed any such role in the UK parliament’s register of MPs’ interests. MPs are required to list any significant formal or informal unpaid roles within 28 days.
A lawyer for Ghandehari said Farage had attended as “an honorary and unpaid adviser” to the businessman’s “impact investment portfolio”. Ghandehari covered the costs of Farage’s pass and accommodation, the lawyer added.
A spokesperson for Farage said that HP Trust provided Nigel with his delegate pass but said they “categorically deny that Nigel Farage has ever been an adviser to HP Trust”.
“He doesn’t advise them and he isn’t paid by them,” the person said. They later disputed that Farage had advised HP Trust since 2018 and said he was not an adviser “now”.
WEF declined to comment.
Farage attended Davos on a so-called white delegate badge, the top-tier pass at the high-security event used by prominent attendees that provides extensive access to sessions and networking events.
While he was at the Swiss resort, Farage issued an apology to the UK’s parliamentary standards watchdog after failing to declare payments on time on 17 separate occasions, which the Reform UK leader blamed on his “complicated and complex” outside interests.
The payments totalled more than £380,000 and came from his paid work outside parliament from companies including GB News and Direct Bullion.
London-based Ghandehari has largely kept a low profile but last year sued the auction house Christie’s over a Picasso painting.
He claimed that Christie’s failed to tell him the painting he bought had been owned by an individual convicted of drug offences. Christie’s said it would “robustly defend” the claim. It called Ghandehari “an experienced art market investor and collector”.
HP Trust’s profile on the WEF website says its investments span sectors including “natural resources, energy, real estate and telecommunications.”
Farage’s attendance at Davos came as a surprise to his supporters given his past criticism of the event, saying in a video released in 2020 that the Alpine event had “no space for the little man”.
“The national state, based on democratic lines, is much better than people deciding our futures in Swiss ski resorts on their annual jaunt to Davos,” he concluded.
But in a video posted online this week, in which he noted that US President Donald Trump and Argentinian leader Javier Milei would also be in attendance, Farage said: “The online conspiracy is running riot, Nigel Farage is going to Davos.”
His rightwing populist Reform UK party received £200,000 in donations last year from Interior Architecture Landscape Limited, a small company of which the Ghandeharis are clients.
The lawyer for Sasan Ghandehari said “whilst the Ghandehari family are clients of Interior Architecture Landscape Limited they are not responsible for its donations”.
The lawyer added: “Mr Nigel Farage was invited by Mr Ghandehari to attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos as an honorary and unpaid adviser to Mr Ghandehari’s impact investment portfolio.
“This portfolio forms part of Mr Ghandehari’s philanthropic activities, aimed at supporting and empowering civil society initiatives, with a particular focus on individuals and communities living under the rule of rogue states in the Middle East.”