Kestrel Industrial Ltd has been a client since 2019 and the file has never given trouble. This month’s media screen returned four results, one of which names its owner in an Italian criminal inquiry. Nothing has been said to him yet.
- Client: Kestrel Industrial Ltd, a Maltese company, a client since 2019. The firm provides the registered office, company secretary, book-keeping, and VAT and tax returns.
- Business: imports industrial pumps, valves and pipeline fittings from manufacturers in Italy, Germany and Spain, and sells them to water and wastewater utilities and their contractors around the central Mediterranean and North Africa.
- Ownership: Paolo Recchi, an Italian national resident in Malta since 2018, holds all the shares and is the sole director.
- Trading: turnover of €14,000,000 in 2025 against €9,000,000 in 2022. Audited without qualification every year, with margins in line with the sector.
- The screening result: an international news agency reported on 14 August that prosecutors in Bari have placed six people under investigation over allegedly rigged tenders at a regional water utility in Puglia. Paolo Recchi is named, described as the owner of a Maltese supplier. No charges have been brought.
- The other three hits: two Italian regional news sites carrying the same agency copy, one of them with a photograph; an anonymous 2023 post on an industry forum alleging that “the Maltese middleman pays to play”, naming nobody; and a 2016 civil boundary claim in Perugia against a different Paolo Recchi, a dentist.
- What the firm’s own records show: Kestrel supplied €2,100,000 of equipment to that utility across four tenders between 2021 and 2024, in each case through an Italian contractor rather than directly
- Commissions: Kestrel pays a 6% sales commission to an agent in Tunisia and 4% to an agent in Italy. Both agreements are in writing, both agents invoice, and every payment is in the accounts.
- Notification: the engagement letter requires the client to notify the firm of any investigation involving the company or its officers. Nothing has been notified, and nobody at the firm has yet spoken to Recchi.
- Other screening: no sanctions and no PEP results on Recchi, the company, either agent or the contractor. The rating at the last review, eleven months ago, was medium.