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Djokovic, Taylor Swiſt and Barack Obama are regular VistaJet fliers, along with a host of corporate CEOs. Flohr, who owns more than 80 per
cent of VistaJet, lives the life of his customers. Home is a 35,000sqſt, seven-storey mansion in the Swiss Alps, with a private cinema, bowling alley and spa. If it sounds like it belongs in a Bond film, you’d be right – Flohr’s rosewood desk featured in From Russia with Love. He travels on a Swiss passport. Some of his tastes may, however, be a little too rich. For his daughter Nina’s 18th birthday, he threw a party for 300 guests that included a historical re-enactment of the rise of Communism. Actors were hired to dress as Soviet soldiers and Bolshevik peasants. Flohr may be keen to paint a rosy
picture of his business and his life, in part, because for the past year he has been embroiled in gruelling legal disputes. Last year he was accused of fraud in London’s High Court. The case centred on €13.5 million of investments made from 2002 by Frontiers Capital, a Guernsey Limited Partnership controlled by Timothy Horlick, in Comprendium UK, a UK business which Flohr chaired. Horlick claimed Flohr used a parallel set of companies, also named Comprendium, to purchase the Swiss and German subsidiaries of his former employer Comdisco, a US computer equipment leasing business that had collapsed into bankruptcy. Comprendium UK subsequently failed. Horlick, the former husband of City
‘superwoman’ Nicola Horlick, alleged Flohr made ‘substantial profits’ from the Comdisco assets and ‘kept hidden the true purpose, extent and structure of the parallel companies’. Horlick was seeking losses and damages exceeding €150 million. Flohr’s lawyers called the claim
‘hopeless’ and the allegations ‘unevidenced’. In March this year the High Court handed down a judgment in Flohr’s favour, dismissing the claims against him on limitation grounds. ‘The case was so ridiculous. We’ve
stopped this nonsense,’ Flohr tells me, as he stops pretending he does not want some of my toast and marmalade and grabs a piece, declaring that the marmalade is the best he has ever tasted.
He goes on to claim: ‘The entire case has been struck out and dismissed. There is no prospect of appeal due to another Supreme Court decision on a similar case.’ Flohr is seeking to recoup what he says are his multimillion-pound legal costs from Frontiers Capital. ‘They lost. They have to pay.’ However, lawyers for Horlick and
Frontiers Capital say Flohr’s comments are ‘not factually correct’. In a written statement to Spear’s, they said it is ‘a misunderstanding to state there is no prospect of appeal’ and argued that none of the court rulings ‘preclude a new claim against Mr Flohr’, which they say Horlick and Frontiers Capital intend to bring. Frontiers Capital told Spear’s the firm would also be pursuing Flohr to recover its legal costs. Flohr’s legal travails do not end there.
When we started, most
operators offered poor service... for $10,000 an hour!
In April VistaJet brought an action in the Maltese courts against John Matthews, boss of rival private jet operator AirX, accusing Matthews and his employees of ‘malevolent, negligent and egregious conduct’ designed to disrupt VistaJet’s business and tarnish the company’s reputation. VistaJet is seeking €386 million in damages. VistaJet brought the case aſter it
obtained 139 pages of WhatsApp messages and emails which it claims show that AirX had been contacting VistaJet’s suppliers, bondholders, ratings firms and journalists, raising questions about VistaJet’s corporate structure and drawing attention to its $4.25 billion debt pile. Flohr claims Matthews said his business methods were unethical and discussed how VistaJet’s ‘challenges’ could benefit AirX. Flohr wrote to
VistaJet bondholders to tell them that ‘for the last 18 months, a group of individuals seeking to damage… our business has disseminated half-truths, false rumors and lies’. Matthews has described VistaJet’s
claim for damages as ‘fantastical’, and in an open letter to Flohr he wrote: ‘Thomas: I am unafraid of you; in fact, I have never felt so empowered.’ He has applied to the Maltese court to strike out Flohr’s claim in its entirety. In a statement to Spear’s, Matthews said: ‘I’ve always found it astonishing that I’m blamed for “financial damage”. I’ve still seen no evidence of damage.’ Shortly before this article went to
press, Flohr wrote an email to Spear’s seeking to ‘withdraw any comment I made with regards to any litigation… We must and will stay away from any comments about lawsuits’. He said that aſter consulting his
lawyers he wished to replace all his comments on the litigation with the sentence: ‘He refrained from commenting.’ He said: ‘That is our official line.’ He added: ‘Frontiers and AirX comments are irrelevant since I never commented.’ As the litigation – and any comments
Flohr may or may not wish to make about it – continues, Flohr is raising fresh capital to expand. VistaJet recently secured $600 million in equity and raised an additional $700 million in an oversubscribed capital offering. He will use the new money to reduce debt repayments by about $160 million this year. He will also upgrade his fleet, introducing higher-speed wifi to enable passengers to stream media at any time. ‘That’s expensive,’ he points out. As he finishes the last drop of his second espresso, Flohr tells me he is ‘focusing on further disrupting this industry. The addressable market is gigantic and growing usually at about double GDP.’ He is eyeing expansion in Asia and Africa and new routes in Europe. With so many non-doms leaving London for Milan aſter recent tax changes in the UK, ‘we’re seeing lots more flights between Milan and the UAE. Many people used to fly from London to Dubai and are now flying from Milan to Dubai. We see a huge and long runway ahead.’ Once all the litigation is settled.
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