BICAL • November 2 2003

Ghidoli confirms – our shares were sold to Cecil Pace

With Pace taken into custody with the suspension of the BICAL licence in late 1972, fledgling businessmen and undertakings are ready to place their hands on the wealth of the BICAL associated groups. The Grand Hotel Excelsior is one such example, and this time, Pace’s hotel is hounded from beyond Maltese shores.
Italian lawyer Michele Martone is at the centre of disagreement on who owns the shares to the Grand Hotel Excelsior (GHE). He is early on the scene when following the Paces’ arrest, he claims the previous owners of the GHE, Antonio Ghidoli and his wife Nada delle Piane, had transferred their shares to him on 20 September 1972.
As early as February 1973, Martone has already been given ‘guarantees’ by controller Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. KMB would commit to Dr Giovanni Bonello, Martone’s lawyer, that when the GHE would be taken into his responsibility as BICAL controller, the hotel would be given to its rightful owner:
"Dear Dr G Bonello, with reference to our discussions in connection with the handing over of the Grand Hotel Excelsior, I wish to confirm to you that after our amicable agreement on the sums due to BICAL and to Pace Group of Companies, I will be able to hand over the said hotel to the Malta and Europe Hotels Co Ltd prior of the present lease."
According to a 1988 Finance Ministry report, it is apparent that KMB’s commitment might have given Martone, who has access to GHE share certificates, enough reason to commence plans to get hold of the GHE. He presents the certificates to KMB, who signs an acknowledgement for the share transfer presented to him by Martone with the following words: "Non ho oggezione al trasferimento" (I have no objections to the transfer), on the 12 November 1974.
Upon release from jail, Cecil Pace faces Michele Martone as the Italian lawyer claims the hotel is his, having had the shares transferred over to him from Antonio and Nada Delle Piane Ghidoli.
But the Paces are not fazed by the apparent setback: in January 2002 they pack their bags and set off looking for the Ghidolis in Firenze. Antonio is no longer, having died eight years earlier, but Nada Delle Piane meets Cecil Pace, and accepts to make a Court declaration on the veracity of the matter.
On 7 January 2003, Nada Delle Piane Ghidoli, in the presence of Italian Notary Elena Santalucia, declares the following:
"together with my husband, we were principle shareholders in Malta & Europe Hotels Ltd which built from the 1960s onwards, the Grand Hotel Excelsior in Floriana, Malta; that during the construction of the hotel, more funds were needed and so we took recourse to Mr Cecil Pace personally and through BICAL bank and Finindustry Ltd, who provided the necessary request; that in consequence to such, and the impossibility of covering such finance, my husband and I sold all our shares to Mr Cecil Pace through one of his companies, after having then conceded the Grand Hotel Excelsior to the company Pabros Ltd;
"that my husband and myself sold and to that effect signed the documents of transfer of all shares to Mr Cecil Pace; that the hotel was operational and welcomed guests up to end 1972; that after a month of operation the BICAL bank collapsed; that Mr Michele Martone was the lawyer of certain creditors… and that Mr Martone attempted to pressure my husband to pay his debts [due to Martone’s clients]; that our lawyer in Malta was Dr Joseph Maria Camilleri; having already sold all our shares to Mr Cecil Pace I always refused the requests of Mr Michele Martone to sell our shares to him as well; in any case we received no correspondence, payment or compensation from the same Mr Martone, or whoever represented him, to have these shares.
"I reconfirm that the shares, as described above, were ceded to a company owned by Cecil Pace."
The declaration was further substantiated by another affidavit by Nada Delle Piane’s son Alessandro on 8 May 2002, in which he declares:
"that in October 1988, Michele Martone arrived at my house in Firenze with two gentleman presented to me as Messrs Abela and Baldacchino; that my mother, Mrs Delle Piane Nada, had refused to meet Mr Martone considering any exchange with him non gratia or necessary;… that during the exchange Messrs Abela and Baldacchino had remained silent and that my mother did not make an appearance; that I did not recognise as authentic any of the documents presented to me by Mr Martone; that I later came to know from my mother how her holdings in property relative to the Malta & Europe Hotels had been ceded to Mr Cecil Pace."