Energy investment group claims $350M capital commitment from Carter Page after advising Trump
An investment company based in Las Vegas, with oil and gas interests in the Middle East claimed that they received a commitment of more than three hundred million dollars from Carter Page’s Global Energy Capital after Page’s involvement in the Trump campaign.
The investment company, RD Heritage Group, claimed on their website in 2017 and 2018 that they they secured a capital commitment of hundreds of millions of dollars from Page and his company:
“$350MM capital commitment by Global Energy Capital … an investment management and advisory firm focused on the energy sector primarily in emerging markets. Global Energy Capital was founded by Carter Page, CFA. Carter has spent 7 years as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch in London, Moscow and New York…Carter was also a foreign policy advisor to Presidential candidate Donald Trump.”
It is unclear if Page ever actually followed through with his commitment. The exact timing of the alleged partnership between RD Heritage and Global Energy Capital is unknown.
After publication, RD Heritage said that the commitment by Global Energy Capital was signed in mid 2015.
In his November 2017 testimony to Congress, Page testified under oath that he had “no other income beyond [passive] investments” in 2016 and 2017. When asked to clarify his statements by Representative Swalwell, Page reiterated that he no clients in 2016 and 2017 and he had no income.
With no clients, no income, and no public business transactions, it is entirely unclear how Page’s company could commit $350M to RD Heritage. Emails, messages, and calls to RD Heritage, its manager John Dean Harper, founder Robert Davis, and Page over the course of weeks were not answered or returned.
The registered address of RD Heritage is a mailbox located within a UPS store in Las Vegas. The only other publicly announced business deal that RD Heritage has struck since its inception in 2013 was earlier this year with LeanLife Health, a Canadian pharmaceutical company. RD Heritage and all of its partners are not accused of any wrongdoing.
Less than 48 hours after the first emails and messages were sent to RD Heritage requesting comment, the company scrubbed their website of any mention of Page or Global Energy Capital. The paragraph detailing Page’s investment was subsequently altered to read, “$350MM capital commitment from an energy focused fund.” A cached version of the website saved the original description of Page’s involvement.
RD Heritage’s main partner in the Middle East is Hadi Al Alawi of the Al Hayat Group, a Bahrain investment company. The company’s website features pictures of one of its principals, Robert Davis, alongside Alawi and various Gulf government officials. The group also touts relationships with major oil/gas companies such as Qatar Petroleum, Kuwait Petroleum, and Saudi Aramco.
A Bloomberg profile of Page in 2016 featured a photo of the then-Trump adviser with Mr. Alawi, confirming that there exists a relationship between the two.
The question of how and why Page was in a position to commit $350,000,000 to a relatively obscure investment company remains completely unknown. Multiple banking experts with whom I spoke cast doubt on the possibility that this money could’ve been a loan from a bank. Page, being the subject of a publicly reported FISA warrant which claimed he was a secret agent of Russia, would’ve been a risky client for any bank.
Page testified that he had no income in 2016 and 2017 except for “passive investments” in publicly traded companies, and that he was “burning through savings.” If he truly did commit $350M in capital to RD Heritage Group after his tenure as a Trump adviser, his Congressional testimony appears to have been misleading or incomplete at best.
