Ownership Unclear
They Want To Remain Secret, Says Faubourg Administrator of Building Owners
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Every month, the 39 tenants of the Faubourg building make out their rent cheque to Edifice 1616 Ste. Catherine Ouest Le Faubourg Inc. They don’t know where their money goes after that.
Neither do we.
“It’s a group of people, they use that name because they don’t want people to know their names,” said Jovette Whiteman, the administrative assistant to building administrator Ziki Zaffir. “It’s like a company number.”
When pressed to reveal the building’s owners, Whiteman refused to disclose their names.
“If they use that name, they want to be known by that name,” she said.
Only Mitch Moss, the president of real estate management firm Crofton Moore, could disclose the owners of the building, according to Whiteman.
According to the Quebec business registry, Edifice 1616 Ste. Catherine Ouest Le Faubourg Inc. was founded in 2002 under Zaffir. It coexisted with another company, 1616 Ste.
Catherine SEC, founded three years earlier by Zaffir. The older company was struck from the corporate registry by the Quebec government in 2006.
Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, a high profile Toronto law firm, is listed as the contact for the file of the stricken company. Two people with connections to the law firm, Rita Lc de Santis and Lillian Vineberg, sit on Concordia’s Board of Governors.
Only two shareholders are listed for the Faubourg’s owner: 4096975 Canada Inc. and the Fishman Group.
4096975 Canada Inc., with Zaffir as its administrator, is a shell company for Amcor Holdings—another enterprise ran by Zaffir. Amcor owns a number of properties around Montreal, and its website lists the Faubourg building as one of its assets.
The Fishman Group is an Israeli conglomerate with substantial holdings in telecommunications and real estate in Canada and Israel. The Group is represented by the law firm Borden Ladner Gervis. The firm has represented Concordia University in the past.
With the exception of a seat on the executive committee of the Canada Israel Chamber of Commerce, Zaffir does not seem to have a visible public life.
Moss and Zaffir did not return The Link’s requests for interviews by publishing time.
This article originally appeared in Volume 31, Issue 15, published November 23, 2010.
