Blackmore Bonds has removed all literature relating to its bonds from its website and replaced them with the following notice:
We have achieved our fundraising goals for this tax year and are not currently taking new investment.
We will be introducing our next offering in the following tax year, so please watch this space for future announcements.
If you are a current investor, you can log in below to manage your account.
At time of writing the rest of the website consists of pictures of six Blackmore property developments and an invitation for residential developers and landowners to contact Blackmore to build partnerships.
After the collapse of London Capital & Finance in December 2018, LCF’s marketing agent, Surge, switched to promoting Blackmore via its top-isa-rates.co.uk and best-interest-rates.co.uk websites. This led to a brief resurgence in web traffic to Blackmore, with its Alexa ranking climbing from sub-1-million to a peak of 500,000 in February 2019.
In February 2019 Surge’s websites stopped promoting Blackmore, and traffic to Blackmore Bonds’ website has declined sharply since, currently sitting at an Alexa rank of 600,000 and falling.
At time of writing, best-interest-rates.co.uk shows a blank page, while top-isa-rates.co.uk promotes a range of peer-to-peer and IFISA investments, with Capital Bridge as their “top pick”. The table no longer misleadingly compares these investments with cash ISAs, instead listing capital-at-risk IFISAs only.
If Blackmore’s offering in the new tax year is materially different from its last one, we’ll bring you an update at that time.
This is a puzzling development in my opinion given the statement in their last audited accounts. The auditors on page 12 stated: “We draw attention to note 1 to the consolidated financial statements which indicates the dependency of the group … on new investor subscriptions to pay its contractually committed fees. This condition … indicate that a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt over the group … to continue as a going concern.”
The “note 1” referred to by the auditors stated a £1.5m new subscriptions per month was required. So it is unclear how this website notice squares with the requirement specified in their audited accounts.
A couple of journalists currently looking at Blackmore have indicated Blackmore could be LC&F 2.0 and contacted me for information but I am not intimately connected with this incarnation of Nunn & McCreesh so not been able to help them. My involvement with the activities of Nunn & McCreesh was with their Blackmore Global fund – a different legal entity, which you can read about here: https://write.as/scam-victim/the-whole-story – however some recent developments are causing me some suspicion regarding the Bond. In March, McCreesh wrote to investors: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FAq7NMBUxH4ASPOS8EqwU4MI56T9YDvp indicating – if I am reading it right – they plan to sell off Blackmore Global – who would buy this opaque high risk fund I have no idea but it could be how they might bring in much needed source of funds to counteract a downturn in investor appetite for the Bond.
As bondreview reported in March: https://bondreview.co.uk/2019/03/01/blackmore-leaps-into-new-era-of-transparency-by-declaring-up-to-20-commissions/ paying 20% commission to Surge Financial means they have to ensure your investment has to make an unrealistic return (in current market conditions).
Blackmore’s main business is property development and there are many concerns over property prices – falling in the first quarter of this year https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/mar/29/house-prices-in-england-fall-for-first-time-since-2012 – with Brexit uncertainty, so achieving the high returns Blackmore needs, to honour their commitment to investors, looks extremely challenging to me.
IF Blackmore were to fail who would be the winners and losers?
Nunn & McCreesh will be winners – they have already been “paid” for their management of the company.
The blood-sucking administrators will win when they get appointed – always do.
Surge win – already been paid their 20% commission and spent a fraction of it on a luxurious helicopter!
The investors will be the SOLE losers! Including the constituent of Gavin Newlands (MP for Paisley & Renfrewshire North) who raised a question in the House 14th March, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2019-03-14/debates/F2A0FEF5-5B87-4986-8709-D67FB7F0CC90/BusinessOfTheHouse?highlight=blackmoor#contribution-9199AA67-BC12-4EFD-8872-176AD5E62698 – reporting his constituent had invested £20,000 in the Blackmore Bond!
The issue that needs to be reported but isn’t being, is WHO is giving the investment advice and are they authorised by the FCA to do so? Is Surge giving financial advice – I cannot find them on the FCA register if they are? Are the investors wrongly self-certifying as “sophisticated”? I would wager they aren’t sophisticated but are in fact retail investors. Why are these investments being allowed to be promoted on a website – a medium “likely” to be seen unwittingly by “retail clients” which imho is contravening FCA rules!
Further, where are investors getting the money? is it savings they have direct access to or is it from Defined Benefit Pension Transfers? If the latter then why are their trustees not carrying out due diligence – expected of them since 2010 – and alerting their members the transfer may be unsuitable?
There is legislation in place to protect retail clients from being conned by these sharks but it isn’t being employed by the impotent authorities to stop them, or prosecute the perpetrators and so innocent people are being let down – badly.
Moreover, journalists are too focused on the funds – which is important to a point – but don’t give attention to those promoting it and no one is looking at who might be giving unauthorised advice or using fraudulent misrepresentations in the giving of advice to retail clients. Only the BBC called out the unauthorised adviser – David Vilka – in the scam I got caught up in http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42776709 in 2015 but to date, 4 years later no one has been prosecuted and Nunn & McCreesh continue to get rich and will continue to do so until the authorities decide to act! I reported it to the useless Action Fraud and got told they weren’t going to investigate it!