Inside Harry and Meghan’s business empire hidden in secretive tax havens – but will they actually make any money?
THE US state of Delaware is at first glance an odd place for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to set up a string of companies for their burgeoning business empire.
Some 2,800 miles from their sun-kissed Californian mansion, it is unclear whether or not Harry and Meghan have even visited the state famed for its peach custard pie.
Yet it emerged last week that it is here, on America’s Atlantic seaboard, that the couple’s busy business and legal managers have incorporated 11 companies and a trust for the couple since April 2020.
The runaway royals are far from alone in choosing Delaware — known as the Switzerland of the US for its lack of corporate transparency — to host their business dealings.
The state, a secretive tax haven where company accounts do not have to be made public, has more firms registered within its bounds than it counts residents.
The Sussexes’ filings offer a glimpse into their lucrative work outside the Royal Family and the direction that their media empire is likely to take.
More than half of their new companies are set up for the “entertainment” sector — with their firms appearing to take names that are dear to them.
So what are these and what do they all mean?
One company, Cloverdale Inc, has the same name as the Los Angeles street in which the young Meghan Markle lived with her mum, Doria.
They shared a modest top-floor apartment after Doria’s divorce from Meghan’s dad, Thomas.
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Another company, Orinoco Publishing LLC, may be a nod to one of Harry’s late mum Princess Diana’s favourite songs.
Previously, he has fondly recalled how Diana loved Orinoco Flow, by Irish singer-songwriter Enya.
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In an interview for the 2017 ITV documentary Diana: Our Mother, Her Life And Legacy, Harry reminisced about his mum driving down country lanes in her convertible BMW while listening to Enya at full blast.
Aptly, the chart-topping 1988 track included the repeated line “Sail away”.
Although its use is unspecified, it is thought the company will publish the Duke’s forthcoming autobiography.
The Sussexes signed an £18.5million four-book mega-deal with publisher Penguin Random House that was made public last July, with Harry’s “intimate and heartfelt memoir” as its centrepiece.
Penguin says that in his book Harry “will share, for the very first time, the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses and life lessons that helped shape him”.
Another publishing firm, Peca Publishing LLC, is among Harry and Meghan’s listings. Peca means freckle in Spanish and could be influenced by the first book Meghan wrote, as a child, called A Face Without Freckles Is A Night Without Stars
The company was founded in 2020 and once held the rights to her children’s book The Bench.
There is also speculation the couple named Hampshire LLC after the county they holidayed in while now mum-of-two Meghan was in the final weeks of her first pregnancy, in spring 2019.
And Baobab Holdings LLC could be influenced by the tree of the same name, which is native to Australia and Africa.
After leaving Eton with two A-levels in 2003, Harry took a gap year Down Under, where he worked on a sheep farm.
And it was in Botswana, southern Africa, that he and Meghan enjoyed their first holiday together in 2017, just weeks after meeting, when Harry booked them a luxury lodge.
The firm Cobblestone Lane LLC, used on the application for the pair’s Archewell trademark, is also incorporated in Delaware.
It is the name of an eye shadow palette made by Bobbi Brown.
Meghan took part in an ad campaign for the make-up brand in 2016.
In a promotional video Brown was seen helping the future royal to touch up her make-up in the back of an Uber.
Meanwhile, Nemawashi Holdings LLC, which was set up in September 2020, is described only as a “holding company”.
Nemawashi is a Japanese term meaning the informal process of quietly laying down the foundation for a project.
The Sussexes’ companies were incorporated by a team led by Richard Genow, Meghan’s long-time attorney, and Andrew Meyer, her business manager.
Delaware’s flexible business laws and low personal income tax rates make it a popular choice for businesses — a whopping 65 per cent of America’s leading “Fortune 500” firms are incorporated there.
The state’s business laws also maintain secure privacy policies, allowing registered company owners to remain anonymous on application, although details of a corporation’s offices and directors must be given.
The Sussexes’ main business comes under the umbrella of their Archewell organisation, headquartered in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
The name comes from the ancient Greek word arche — meaning “source of action” — and the English word well, which the couple refer to as “a plentiful source or supply; a place we go to dig deep”.
Their US-registered charity the Archewell Foundation is described on its own website as “an impact-driven non-profit” created by the Sussexes.
The corporate bumpf adds: “Our core purpose is to uplift and unite communities — local and global, online and offline — one act of compassion at a time.”
Tax filings reveal the foundation raised £36,947 in 2020. Founded in April 2020, it did not open a bank account until January 2021.
Archewell Audio LLC and Archewell Productions LLC have been used to facilitate the Sussexes’ high-profile entertainment deals with Netflix and Spotify.
Their five-year contract with Netflix, announced in September 2020, is reported to be worth £74million.
Archewell Productions is scheduled to make films, documentaries, feature films and children’s programming.
‘They’ve never struck me as team players’
It will include the documentary series Heart Of Invictus, profiling athletes and organisers preparing for the Paralympics-style Invictus Games that Harry founded in 2014 for wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women, both serving and veterans.
Meghan is developing an animated series called Pearl, about a 12-year-old girl inspired by influential women in history.
It counts Sir Elton John’s husband David Furnish and leading US documentary maker Liz Garbus among its executive producers.
Other programme announcements have, however, been rather thin on the ground.
Then there is their three-year podcasting deal with Spotify, reportedly worth £18million.
So far, it has produced just 35 minutes of aired programming.
A December 2020 Christmas special from their Archewell Audio channel saw them chatting to celebrity friends including Sir Elton John and James Corden.
But Archewell’s plans for “a full-scale launch of shows” in 2021 failed to materialise.
Spotify bosses have now stepped in by hiring a host of in-house producers to finally help Harry and Meghan to deliver the goods.
One ad for a senior producer role at Gimlet Projects, Spotify’s own production arm, reads: “We’re currently assembling a show team that will build and launch a new original show with Archewell featuring the voices of high-profile women.
“The ideal candidate has experience working with high-profile talent, and an interest in the intersection of social activism and popular culture.”
A source close to the project said: “Spotify has been waiting a long time for some content from Harry and Meghan and now it appears they have finally taken matters into their own hands.
“Hiring a raft of in-house talent on Spotify’s side will ensure that they finally squeeze something out of Harry and Meghan as they bid to honour their contract.”
But PR guru Mark Borkowski said about the couple’s efforts: “You just don’t pluck engaging content off some tree at the bottom of the garden.
“This is hard work and you absolutely need a team of people to help you develop a quality product, and they’ve never struck me as team players.”
Borkowski told TalkRADIO: “These great golden gooses have laid nothing but more smelly old eggs — well, they haven’t even laid an egg.”
Harry’s potentially explosive memoir, slated to be released later this year, may certainly prove a golden egg.
As for his and Meghan’s broad-casting careers, and the vast inked deals with Netflix and Spotify, the pressure will now be on to pull in big audiences that live up to the hype.
