THE personal assets of cycling hero Stephen Roche are being pursued by Spanish bankruptcy officials after he was found guilty of acting fraudulently by a commercial court in Mallorca.
The ruling, which was revealed exclusively by the Irish Mail on Sunday last week, ordered Mr Roche to repay €750,000 and found that he had deliberately stripped assets from his Spanish cycling holiday firm before vanishing from Mallorca in 2017.
The court findings concluded Mr Roche spent much of the money maintaining a lux- ury lifestyle – instead of paying creditors owed money by his firm, Shamrock Events SL.
The MoS has learned the Spanish administrator appointed to oversee the bankruptcy of Roche’s firm intends to pursue his assets abroad to recover money for creditors. Manuela Serrano Sanchez, who works for PWC in Madrid, said the ‘guilty’ finding against Mr Roche meant his assets could be pursued under EU agreements that ensure civil and commercial judgments can be enforced across Europe. ‘Now we have to try to pursue assets of Mr Roche in Spain and outside Spain if possible,’ she said. ‘It will be difficult but we will do our best to achieve money to the creditors.’
The full extent of Mr Roche’s assets are not known, but the MoS has learned that after leaving Mallorca he established a new Hungarian firm called Shamrock 1987 Kft. The firm is named after the year he famously won the cycling triple crown with epic victories in the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the World Road Race Championship. According to official accounts filed in Hungary, Shamrock 1987, was founded in May 2018 after debts at Mr Roche’s firm on the other side of Europe had spiralled by 250% to €519,571 the previous year. The Spanish courts have found that, instead of paying those, his firm owed money to, Mr Roche transferred hundreds of thousands of euro from his company in 2017 and 2018. These funds went into various accounts in his own name.
However, the MoS has learned some of these funds were then transferred onwards by Roche to a UK account controlled by his Hungarian-based wife, Csilla Adrienne Henschl Matthieu.
Mr Roche’s wife, a one-time lecturer and choreographer who used to operate a London business, is referred to only as ‘CAH Matthieu’ in the damning bankruptcy ruling against her husband.
According to the judge in the case, most of the illegitimate transfers made by Roche in 2017 and 2018 went to a specific personal account in his name.
However, the court pointed to the fact that these payments into Mr Roche’s personal account from his failing Mallorca business ‘correspond well to unjustified and important transfers made to third parties.’
The ruling specifically identifies that these corresponding transfers to third parties went ‘fundamentally’ to the UK account of ‘CAH Matthieu’.
According to the Spanish ruling, Mr Roche ‘repeatedly and deliberately’ transferred company funds in this fashion ‘to meet his high and ostentatious personal expenses’.
In 2017 the sum of these ‘improper provisions’ amounted to €519,571.43 – a figure that rose to €715,814.97 in July 2018.
Meanwhile, the two employees of the Spanish firm stopped receiving their wages in June 2018 without any notice from Mr Roche who had established his Hungarian firm – Shamrock 1987 Ktf – the previous month with his wife Csilla.
Now known as Csilla Roche-Henschl, the full name of Mr Roche’s wife – and the July 2020 change to the use of his surname – is officially listed in the documents the couple filed for their Hungarian firm.
The registered address of the firm is that of a small, luxury hotel called ‘Wellness Villa’ on the shores of Lake Balaton in the tourist resort of Siofok. But a related ‘branch’ address listed in the company files is that of a health food shop and pharmacy apparently run by Mr Roche’s wife.
The pair also listed a London address together, although the land registry there does not show them as owning this property. The couple’s Hungarian Wellness Villa, currently charges more than €200 a night for a double room and has received glowing reviews.
‘The owners (she a Hungarian devil-does-all, he a former Irish cycling champion) are super friendly. Stephen even took us to the restaurant in Siofok and picked us up,’ wrote one Belgian guest in 2019.
According to its filed documents in Hungary, Mr Roche’s hotel firm has operated a number of accounts in Budapest, including facilities at branches of Raiffeisen Bank, MKB Bank and Takarék bank.
Mr Roche has always denied fleeing his responsibilities in Mallorca and has pledged to repay anything he can. But according to the Spanish ruling, Mr Roche was knowledgeable about the precarious state of his Mallorca firm but ‘continued looting the company’s accounts for private use as soon as there was a minimum cash income in them’.
The court found he then used the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle involving the ‘purchase of goods for personal use such as watches or gift expenses in certain luxury stores’.
Last week, in the wake of his father’s death, Mr Roche told the MoS he would bounce back and clear his name. He is now working on an appeal of the Spanish verdict against him.
‘We are appealing,’ he told the MoS last night. ‘It’s not going to go away, I know and OK, I accept certain things, but they can’t throw all that s*** at me.’
Mr Roche said he had email trails showing he offered ‘to settle any money I might owe or offering other ways of repayment.’
‘None of them were taken into consideration at all… it’s not going to innocent me but at least it shows that I am not reckless, you know,’ he said.
Mr Roche also said there had been a ‘total lack of goodwill to try and understand’ his position. He also rejected accusations that he overspent on designer goods.
‘The fact that I wear a Boss suit, what does that change?’ he asked. ‘There’s guys in the street wearing Boss suits. It’s no longer designer clothing. You can get T-shirts for €50 now in Boss, you know. And suits are like €300 top and bottom.’
