The administrator of a corporation that collapsed, having lost tens of millions of kilos of buyers’ coins, has called on four humans to pay off cash. Thousands of first-time traders put their pensions and savings into London Capital & Finance (LCF), which collapsed in January owing to £236m. Administrators have requested that Andy Thomson, Simon Hume-Kendall, Elton Barker, and Spencer Golding return funds. The four have not spoken back to BBC requests for comment.
LCF marketed itself as a low-hazard ISA and promised to unfold the price range between masses of groups. In truth, the fund did not qualify as an ISA, and the money became best invested in 12 groups, 10 of which were described as “now not impartial” by LCF. In its first record since the organization collapsed, administrator Smith & Williamson determined:
There have been some “enormously suspicious transactions” involving a “small group of linked people,” which caused large sums of buyers’ cash to end up in their “personal ownership or management.” Many borrowers don’t seem to have sufficient assets to pay back LCF buyers. Some transactions were “especially suspicious” or had “no commercial advantage” to traders. Investors’ money was loaned to a complicated web of organizations, many of which were managed using people concerned with LCF.
A portion of all the money invested was paid immediately to LCF’s advertising business enterprise, Surge. The document states that Mr. Thomson and Mr. Hume-Kendall have agreed to paintings with Smith & Williamson.
Where did the cash emerge?
Some stranger transactions – described as “tremendously suspicious” – encompass loans to agencies intent on growing land in Cape Verde, the Dominican Republic, and Cornwall. The administrator stated notwithstanding being loaned £27m two years in the past, the two agencies in Cape Verde did now not have felony rights to any land, at the same time as four groups in the Dominican Republic handiest owned undeveloped land and owed almost £50m.
The administrator said there was “no evidence” they might be capable of paying off the debt. More than £20m was loaned to an employer called Waterside, which stated it acquired the money “in desirable religion” to refurbish its premises close to Bodmin, Cornwall. The administrator is “very worried” that management has made “no real efforts” to prove the agency’s price or their potential to pay off the mortgage.
In one deal, LCF loaned £840,000 to its figure company, London Financial Group, to shop for a helicopter and promote it to an American organization for “brief earnings.” Once the plane was sold, it “became clear” that the USA entity had best wanted the aircraft’s constitution and no longer purchased it. LCF also made a £20m investment in a company that, in July 2018, owned £15.1m worth of horses.
FS Equestrian Services – of which Spencer Golding is the “corporation client”- owes £12.2m but reputedly has no financial institution account and changed possession in January free of charge. One of the most complex financial structures comes from an entity known as London Oil & Gas (LOG), which is now in management. However, it owes LCF £124m. Almost all of the cash loaned to LOG using LCF has been loaned out to other agencies, some of which might be unlikely with a view to paying it back. One transaction wherein an organization became loaned £25m is under “urgent investigation” via the administrator. Another organization owes £23.2m, nearly £12m of which is “unaccounted for” and under investigation.
