Bertrand G. des Pallieres

According to UK Companies House and Luxembourg registry filings, the subject’s full legal name is Bertrand Ghislain Yves Gauquelin des Pallières, born November 1966, French national, resident in Rome at 9 Via G. A. Rayneri ¹⁴. His OneIM team-page biography lists “Centricus and JPMorgan” as prior employers but omits Deutsche Bank ³. The Round 5 record of an investigation entry for “Stéphane des Pallières” was a misidentification; Luxembourg RCS B150334 director filings, the Independent’s 2015 article, and the OneIM team page all use the same individual: Bertrand G. des Pallières ²⁵.

His documented professional sequence begins at JPMorgan as Head of EMEA Sales and rises to Managing Director and Global Head of Structured Credit (1992–2005), continues at Deutsche Bank as Managing Director and Global Head of Principal Finance (2005–2007), then to founder of Methorios Capital LLP in 2007 and CEO/Director of SPQR Capital Holdings SA in Luxembourg from 2010 ²¹. According to the WSJ February 2020 article and SPQR registry traces, the 2007 Deutsche Bank departure was a three-person breakaway: he co-founded SPQR with Malik Chaabouni and Moez Ben-Zid ³.

Other publicly recorded directorships include Equus Total Return Inc (NYSE: EQS, Houston), Cadogan Petroleum plc (UK/Ukraine; he served as CEO 2011–2017 across the Yanukovych era, the Maidan protests, and the Crimea and Donbas annexations), Lansdowne Capital SA, InfraVia Capital Partners SAS, Attali Investment Partners Ltd, Euromax Finance Ltd, Methorios Capital Services Ltd, SPQR Capital (Cayman) Ltd, and Bitfury Group Ltd ²³. He was joint defendant with Alessandro Benedetti in Kruppa v Benedetti ⁸ EWHC 1887 (Comm) ¹.

UK Companies House and Luxembourg RCS filings document a multi-year overlap with Alessandro Benedetti across Attali Investment Partners Ltd (UK 07138407, January 2010 to December 2015), SPQR Capital Holdings SA (Luxembourg, since 2010), Equus Total Return Inc (NYSE: EQS), Cadogan Petroleum plc, and Bitfury Group ¹⁶. According to Companies House records, both men resigned from Attali Investment Partners in December 2015 and were replaced by Methorios Capital LLP as corporate director ¹⁶. Three SPQR Capital Holdings directors — Benedetti as Chair, des Pallières, and the Luxembourg-resident French corporate-administration specialist Mathieu Villaume — were all installed on 1 March 2016, a date that fell inside the active phase of SPQR’s Wind Hellas creditor litigation against Naguib Sawiris’s Weather Investments ⁴². Analysis of the simultaneous 1 March 2016 appointments indicates a typical Luxembourg fund-vehicle governance shape comprising principal, co-investor representative, and independent director ⁴.

The relationship with Rajeev Misra dates to Deutsche Bank’s Global Credit and Emerging Markets desk (1997–2008), according to the Wall Street Journal of 27 February 2020, he “had worked with Mr. Misra at Deutsche Bank”; analysis of finding #11114 indicates that Deutsche Bank alumni overlap is the introduction route through which Misra met Benedetti circa 2014–2015 ¹⁵. The same WSJ article reports the introduction produced the SoftBank covert-campaign relationship that Benedetti ran against rival Vision Fund executives ¹. As of 2024 he is named on the OneIM team page as Partner – Private Credit, with Misra retaining him into the post-SoftBank Abu Dhabi vehicle despite his public naming in the 2020 WSJ article ³.

According to the Luxembourg RCS B150334 register, Mathieu Villaume took the SPQR Capital Holdings Chair on 4 January 2016 and remained until 7 February 2018, bridging the December 2015 joint resignations of Benedetti and “Bertrand Gauquelin” (the subject’s Companies House surname form) ⁴. Brian P. Brooks, the former US Acting Comptroller of the Currency under the first Trump administration, is a co-director at Bitfury Group Limited (UK 11441275); Companies House records indicate the four-person Bitfury board comprises the subject (French, UAE-resident), Vavilov (Latvian/Russian/Ukrainian/British, UAE-resident), Kikvadze (Georgian, Dubai), and Brooks (American) ³⁷. Mark Hollingsworth, a freelance British journalist with separate ENRC-related exposure, co-bylined the October 2015 Independent piece for which the subject provided the on-the-record SPQR Capital quote ⁵.

SPQR Capital and other junior bondholders held debt in the TIM Hellas / Wind Hellas Greek mobile carrier and lost their positions when Naguib Sawiris’s Weather Investments acquired the group out of administration, wiping approximately GBP 1.3 billion of debt according to registry-sourced reporting ². According to the same registry-sourced finding, des Pallières called on the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to investigate Ernst & Young over its handling of the Wind Hellas administration after the bondholder loss ².

On 28 October 2015 the Independent published “The private equity giants, the Greek target and a Trojan horse,” co-bylined Jim Armitage and Mark Hollingsworth, in which he was named verbatim as “SPQR Capital’s Bertrand des Pallieres” — the on-the-record creditor source whose attribution allowed the placed story to clear UK pre-publication libel review ⁵. According to UK Companies House records, his Attali Investment Partners co-directorship with Alessandro Benedetti ended in the same month the Independent piece ran ⁵¹⁶. Eight months later the campaign produced the departure of the SoftBank executive identified in the WSJ as “Mr. West,” and according to the WSJ February 2020 reconstruction the operation was coordinated by Benedetti for Misra under the same Deutsche Bank-alumni chain that the subject had introduced ¹.

Round 5 records of this investigation associated the 28 October 2015 Luxembourg courthouse hearing with Compagnie Du Salève SA (Luxembourg RCS B223232); however, registry checks show that B223232 was incorporated on 23 March 2018, which post-dates the 2015 hearing by approximately 2.5 years and therefore could not have been the entity at the 2015 hearing ⁹. Examination of the Luxembourg registry indicates the actual 2015 vehicle is more likely a now-closed predecessor — French SARL #803012046 in Monnetier-Mornex (Haute-Savoie, on the Geneva border) is the leading candidate; the present-day Luxembourg Compagnie Du Salève SA shares its registered office at 12 rue Guillaume Schneider L-2522 with SPQR Capital Holdings SA but is owned by Five Arrows AutoBench Holding Sàrl, a Rothschild & Co private-equity affiliate ⁹⁴.

SPQR Capital Holdings SA (Luxembourg RCS B150334) is registered at 12 rue Guillaume Schneider L-2522, Luxembourg City — the same NeoTrust Fiduciary domicile that subsequently hosted Compagnie Du Salève SA and, per the ICIJ Offshore Leaks index, eleven Panama Papers entities ⁴. According to the Luxembourg trade register, he served as director from 1 March 2016 alongside Benedetti as Chair (also from 1 March 2016) and Mathieu Villaume (1 March 2016 to 7 February 2018), with Michel Thill briefly added in October 2021 to August 2022; the entity entered liquidation on 16 March 2023 under court-appointed liquidator Christian Steinmetz ⁴. Analysis of the simultaneous March 2016 appointments indicates the move coincided with the active phase of SPQR’s creditor dispute against Weather Investments and produced a three-handed governance shape — Benedetti as principal, the subject as co-investor representative, and Villaume as independent director ⁴.

The Swiss arm of the structure is SPQR Capital Services Sagl in Lugano, Switzerland (CHE-496.390.425, paid-up capital CHF 20,000, registered 17 March 2011, chaired by Benedetti) ¹⁰. According to a comparison of the SPQR and Asherco registers, Villaume is the human-continuity bridge across SPQR’s 2010–2023 lifetime: he held the SPQR Capital Holdings Chair from 4 January 2016, departed 7 February 2018, then resurfaced as the sole-UK natural-person fiduciary on Asherco LLP (UK OC379532) from 1 July 2024, the present-day vehicle for ongoing Benedetti operations ¹¹⁴.

According to the WSJ February 2020 article and SPQR’s Luxembourg formation record, his 2007 departure from Deutsche Bank Principal Finance was a three-person breakaway with Malik Chaabouni and Moez Ben-Zid that founded SPQR; SPQR went on to take a 27–28.5% controlling stake in Cadogan Petroleum plc, on which he served as CEO from 2011 to 2017, with Eni S.p.A. as a 2013 Western Ukraine shale-gas joint-venture partner ³. According to the Companies House register pulled on 7 May 2026, a 4 August 2025 filing for Bitfury Group Limited retroactively backdated his director details to 1 February 2023 ⁷.

According to UK Companies House records, he has held a directorship of Bitfury Group Limited (UK CO# 11441275) since 20 May 2021, with the stated UK service address “Centricus, Byron House, 7–9 St James’s Street” ³⁷. The four-person Bitfury board at the time of SoftBank Group Corp’s $50 million Cipher Mining PIPE on 30 January 2025 consisted of him (UAE-resident), Brian P. Brooks (American, ex-OCC Acting Comptroller, joined the MicroStrategy / Strategy board on 20 December 2024), Valery Vavilov (Latvian co-founder, UAE-resident), and George Kikvadze (Georgian, runs Bitfury MENA from Dubai); two of the four directors are explicit UAE residents per the Companies House register pulled on 7 May 2026 ⁷. Cipher Mining (NASDAQ: CIFR) was Bitfury Group’s NASDAQ spin-off via merger with Good Works Acquisition Corp in 2021, and SoftBank’s 30 January 2025 PIPE entered through a subsidiary named Star Beacon LLC, alongside an option on a 300 megawatt Texas data-centre site ¹².

According to the OneIM team page and the Bitfury board page, he is, as of 2024, Partner – Private Credit at OneIM, the Abu Dhabi private-credit firm founded by Rajeev Misra after his November 2024 SoftBank exit and anchored by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed’s Royal Group and Mubadala ³. Analysis of the OneIM disclosure history indicates his career sequence runs Deutsche Bank Principal Finance under Misra (2005–2007), the SPQR/Methorios constellation (2007–2023), Centricus consultancy during the Vision Fund 1 era (approximately 2018–2023), and OneIM Partner Private Credit Abu Dhabi from approximately 2024 onward; the OneIM team-page biography names “Centricus and JPMorgan” but omits Deutsche Bank ³.

Analysis of the broader 15-actor SoftBank-caper system indicates the Bitfury Group UK board functions as a structural object linking him (OneIM/Misra), Brooks (former OCC), Vavilov (post-Soviet operator), and Kikvadze (Bitfury MENA); the same analysis identifies a recurring Bitfury-to-OCC personnel channel comprising Brooks (2020 Acting Comptroller) and Jonathan Gould (confirmed 32nd Comptroller of the Currency, 10 July 2025), both ex-Bitfury executives ³. Examination of the Round 5 meta-synthesis indicates Mubadala-anchored deal-flow rather than the Saudi PIF is the dominant capital-sponsor cohesion across the system, including this subject via OneIM ³. As of February 2026, Brad Karp resigned as Paul Weiss chairman following the Jeffrey Epstein email release, a development chronologically separate from but coincident with the Bitfury and OneIM positioning ³.