Asset Life plc offers unregulated fixed-interest bonds paying 8.75%pa for a three year term.
Who are Asset Life plc?
There is no information on the website as to who is behind the business.
Companies House shows that the directors are Andrew Farmiloe, Terence Mitchell and Leonard Russell.
According to the annual return the company is owned by a range of shareholders including the above named directors, an ex-director John Woodroffe-Stacey, and three companies who own 9.5% shareholdings each: Dragon Wave Holdings, International Energy Investment and Yum Software SL. The three companies holding shares are presumably offshore – “SL” usually indicates a Spanish limited liability company. None of the directors appear to have a controlling interest (greater than 50%).
How secure is the investment?
Despite Asset Life plc’s statements on its website “The major advantage is that you know upfront what return you will receive over the 3 year period” and references to the product as a “deposit”, these investments are unregulated corporate loans and if Asset Life defaults you risk losing 100% of your money.
Asset Life plc states that the money is used to invest in “startup firms and established businesses with perceived long-term growth potential”. Start-up investment is a high-risk area and your return is dependent on Asset Life plc being able to make sufficient returns from its investments to pay investors 8.75% per annum. If it fails, there is a risk of default.
Asset Life plc states that there is a “Lenders Guarantee” which means that if Asset Life plc defaults, investors will be covered by an insurance policy which will pay up to £250,000. The insurance policy is provided by Klapton Insurance, which is registered in the Autonomous Island of Anjouan, Union of Comoros.
As a Comoran company there is a very little verifiable information available on Klapton Insurance. Asset Life plc states that Klapton has been rated as “An international scale claims paying ability rating of B- (single B-) with a stable outlook” by Global Credit Ratings, who describe themselves as “Africa’s no.1 rating agency”. I have asked Global Credit Ratings to provide us with a copy of the credit report, and they have refused, stating “I believe the Klapton report and rating are private and hence we are not in a position to provide this”.
This gives us very little to go on as to whether Klapton has sufficient resouces to compensate investors should Asset Life plc default on its bonds.
Should I invest with Asset Life plc?
This website does not provide investment recommendations, however investors should consider the following generic principles before proceeding with this investment:
As with any unregulated corporate bond, this investment is only suitable for sophisticated and/or high net worth investors who have a substantial existing portfolio and are prepared to risk 100% loss of their money.
Before placing any reliance on the “Lenders Guarantee”, investors should undertake professional due diligence to confirm that a) Klapton Insurance has sufficient resources to meet all investors’ claims in the event that Asset Life plc defaults, b) that the insurance contract has been properly drafted to ensure that it will pay out as described.
Before investing investors should ask themselves:
- How would I feel if the investment defaulted and I lost 100% of my money?
- Do I have a sufficiently large portfolio that the loss of 100% of my investment would not damage me financially?
- Have I conducted due diligence to ensure the insurance contract with Klapton can be relied on?
If you are looking for a “protected” or “deposit” investment, you should not invest in unregulated products with a risk of 100% capital loss.
asset life are paying interest late, it’s beem a month now and i’m still waiting. also the bond is supposed to mature on 2nd november but they are saying they can’t pay investors back on that date , needs to be extended for a potential year
asset life is another company being marketed by Direct Property Investments. they keep selling these second rate products to the public, someone needs to stop them
Asset Life Plc bond matured three weeks ago but STILL no payment made. Despite a letter asking if investors were happy to extend the bond term.
Update – asset life true to word paid my maturity back without any drama . Raz working there is a great guy
Making payment three weeks late and only after you chased (and went public) isn’t my idea of no drama. But I’m not here to rain on your parade. Glad you got your capital back in full.
True about the drama thing Brev, I guess I’m putting it into context with the whole MJS debacle; where the level of drama is going from strength to strength.
My interest was due end of November. Nothing now 17th December. No one gets back to me from Amyma. Glad I only invested the minimum,
Trying to get my money back for over a year now. Seems a scam to me.
@Thomas: Did you request repayment when the Series A bonds originally matured in July 2017?
The reason I ask is that’s the only expiry date for Asset Life plc’s debentures that happened over a year ago.
New article: FCA issues warning over Asset Life plc – nearly five years after it began issuing unregulated bonds
Phew! glad i got out when i did
It’s gonna be quite surprising when the full details come out on this one. As of yet, you won’t know who is behind this one unless you are a dedicated follower of these things (recurring names for his/her partners in grime) Glad the FCA have finally acted. I tipped them off in July 2014 and sorry to any investors who lose money.
My Bloodstock plc. Swifts Manor Farm Ltd, honestly!
Lesson: please read the accounts (which were consistently filed late) befoe investing next time. These ones were qualified with the warning that the value of the investments was not independently verifiable.
Possibly the most galling sofa crack down which investors money will have disappeared is the investment in “Missing Assets Worldwide Ltd”. They really are quite an unpleasant bunch.
It is funny (odd, not haha) how all the same guys paths criss cross. Swifts Manor Farm has Eazy Corporate Services as Secretary and the director of that was director along with Vaeron Ltd (Paul Seakens) and Paul Seakens in person at Yarmouth Place Ltd which were all involved in the Carbon Neutral Investments blow up which in turn linked to all the AGT carbon credit blow up and James Brown and Thomas Knifton (and thefore to the whole Knifton/Weller gang). Paul Seakens’ Opus Capital provided the original S21 promotions green light to the Asset Life prospectus.
Lots of links here with LC&F. Martin Binks as an officer at both, Andy Thompson of LC&F “trained” with Renwick Haddow and Brett Jolly at Capital Alternatives. and did the Green Planet and White Sands scams.
The courts, Andrew Penman and Tony Hetherington have outed these guys in the press so its not really news, but it will tell investors still in, not to get up high expectations.
And I haven’t even revealed the main man. For afficionados, there is another Haddow link.
Finally, I simply don’t understand why the FCA get legged over, time and time and again, when those iwth far fewer reaources can see this stuff a mile off.
The shapeshifters just move on. I have this down as either a further iteration of Asset Life or the work of another right crowd (they do all criss-cross). Either way this mighty effort must have been in the hatching for quite a while. They have really put in quite a lot of work.
twpplc.co.uk
There might be a bit of cloning involved in this one. Certainly don’t take anything on the website at face value. It is quite surprising to me that Mr Drake was so highly revered around the world by Forbes in 2017 when he spent seven years at Wills & Co and working alongside Paul Seakens at Opus between 2009 and 2016. The Nigel Waller touch in the IM is exceptionally cheeky.
Asset Life Plc going to administration very soon, a hope everybody get investment back.
i invested with asset life via Direct Property Investments, but managed to get get paid