Boris Becker’s investment in Nigeria caused his bankruptcy – lawyer

According to a new report of the Daily Mail, a London newspaper, German tennis legend Boris Becker became bankrupt due to a failed investment he made in a Nigerian oil company.

Becker, who was declared bankrupt last month, is reported to have made the investment, which has now ‘plunged in value’, in 2013.

The three-time Wimbledon winner lost a huge part of his €114million fortune in the Nigerian investment, according to his lawyer, John Briggs, who disclosed to a London court that Becker is not financially ‘sophisticated’.

German news magazine Der Spiegel said Becker struck the ‘mega-deal’ in 2013, which was brokered by a Canadian firm and a Nigerian employee of Becker.

The magazine said documents show that in July 2013 Becker held shares in the unnamed oil firm in Nigeria whose stock plummeted.

The former tennis champion is said to have also lost sizable parts of his wealth through divorce and paternity settlements, totalling more than €22.8million in 2001– to his first wife, Barbara, and Angela Ermakova, the Russian model who had his baby after a brief encounter in a London restaurant.

The next year Becker received a two-year suspended sentence for tax evasion in Germany. He was ordered to pay €2.85million in back tax, fines and legal costs after claiming Monaco as his main residence while mostly living in Munich.

Becker, now 49, was once estimated to be worth upwards of €114million. He was declared bankrupt in June 2017 over 3.5 million euros owed to London-based private bankers Arbuthnot Latham & Co since 2015. Daily Mail reported that Becker’s remaining assets will be disposed of to pay creditors.

Sola Jolaoso