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The UK’s financial watchdog has fined and banned a British financier over bids he made to buy a bank and Reading Football Club, during which he falsely claimed to own a €200mn bond portfolio. Paul Taylor, who has been involved in several large deals over the past three decades, “acted dishonestly and with a lack of integrity” during both sets of negotiations, the Financial Conduct Authority said on Friday, fining him £489,000.  Taylor, a former bricklayer turned financier who has previously been linked to the Qatar royal family, made “false and misleading statements” while he was chief executive of the London-based firm Blue Horizon Asset Management, according to the FCA. He has also been barred from working in financial services. In December 2023, during negotiations over the £37mn purchase of a UK bank, Taylor supported his position with documents claiming he was the ultimate beneficial owner of a €200mn bond portfolio, the FCA said. The claims triggered an exclusivity period where a seller agrees to negotiate with only one buyer. After anomalies over his ownership were found in October 2024, Taylor advised Blue Horizon to tell the FCA that it had provided the regulator with false information. Taylor, who was involved in an attempt to buy Chelsea Football Club in 2002, had also claimed to own the bond portfolio in a separate negotiation to buy Reading Football Club in 2024.  After Blue Horizon informed the FCA that it had provided false information, Taylor and the asset manager commissioned an internal investigation by a law firm, whose findings were provided to the regulator. Taylor, 63, has had an unlikely path in the world of finance, starting as a bricklayer before getting a job as a cashier at NatWest, where he rose to lead the structured finance business, according to press reports.   The British financier later joined the business of the Tchenguiz property tycoons and set up a joint venture with the Qatari royal family called Three Delta, through which they made a number of purchases, including nursing home operator Four Seasons.  Taylor also helped orchestrate the Qatari stake in J Sainsbury through a separate vehicle called Delta Two and pitched an offer for them to buy the supermarket group at a £12bn valuation in 2007. Taylor’s relationship with the Qatari royals broke down in 2008. He was reported to have once spent £21,000 on a trading jacket purportedly worn by rogue trader Nick Leeson in an auction by the liquidator of Barings Bank. Reading have had a lot of misfortune with owners and bidders.