London Property Bonds (renamed LP Bonds plc), which issued bonds worth £489,000 to the public, has been issued with the second strike-off notice of its short life. It has been overdue with its accounts since May 2018 and is also overdue with its confirmation statement (details of its directors and owners).
If the company continues to fail to meet its legal duties and no objection is received to the strike-off, the company will be removed from the Companies House register in March 2019 and all its assets will be forfeited to the UK Government. The directors also risk prosecution under the Companies Act.
Its last accounts disclosed that LP Bonds had received an undertaking of unconditional support from its owner Robert Holmes lasting until 31 May 2019. Why this support is not sufficient to enable the company to file accounts on time is not clear.
Its parent company, Holmes Investment Properties plc, has also been late with its accounts since September 2018. A few days before the end of September 2018, it used the accounting-period-shortening loophole to give it an extra three months to file accounts, but failed to file accounts or deploy the loophole again by December 2018, meaning it is now officially overdue and the loophole is no longer available.
London Property Bonds were promoted by Stoa Financial, which also promoted Providence Bonds (which collapsed with total investor losses) and Shenton Bonds (still trading after c. 70% of investors elected to roll over their maturing bonds in 2018).
Stoa’s sole director, Christopher Day, was also a director of Secured Energy Bonds (now in administration) and Independent Portfolio Managers (now in liquidation).
