A lengthy queue formed outside Holborn’s City Temple Conference Centre on Wednesday as hundreds of London Capital & Finance victims attended a meeting called by the administrators.
Mike Stubbs, a lawyer for Mishcon de Reya who is working with the administrators, described LCF’s record-keeping as “virtually hallucinogenic . . . The whole show was a complete shambles.”
The administrators revised the best-case recovery estimation from 20% of the amount invested to 20-25%. This is apparently based on the “strong performance” of Independent Oil and Gas, described by administrators as the “jewel in the crown”.
“The turd that didn’t flush” would seem to be a more fitting description of IOG as far as LCF’s interests go. It seems unlikely that leaving IOG as the only asset in LCF that currently has any measurable realisable value (aside from cash in the bank and a whirlybird) was part of any coherent strategy on the part of LCF’s former directors.
“Strong performance” is perhaps overegging it. Since S&W were appointed as administrators at the end of January, when IOG traded at around 14p a share, the shares have dropped to 12p a share. There was a brief spike to 19p a share but after a potential deal to sell LCF’s IOG debt to RockRose Energy collapsed, the shares fell back down again.
However, the share price potentially doesn’t tell the full story as LCF’s debt comes with the right to convert the debt to shares in IOG. Exactly how valuable LCF’s oily nugget is will only become clear when LCF’s IOG interests are sold or repaid.
The administrators seem optimistic that this will happen relatively quickly once IOG’s refinancing is complete.
In what was described as a “shambles” by some creditors in attendance, a vote to form a creditors’ committee was postponed as a number of attendees were unaware that a vote was to take place, due to not having a Facebook account.
The administrators revealed that, having previously promised to pay money into escrow to potentially repay bondholders, former LCF directors Andy Thompson and Simon Hume-Kendall have so far failed to do so. In what is possibly the least surprising news since Johnny Mercer MP announced that he intends to nobly stand by his £350-an-hour Crucial Academy gig through thick and thin.
“In what is possibly the least surprising news since Johnny Mercer MP announced that he intends to nobly stand by his £350-an-hour Crucial Academy gig through thick and thin.”
Johnny Mercer is an idiot. He should come clean and acknowledge he was Carelessly stitched up and should turn it around by helping to put away those that orchestrated the scam and call out the FCA for doing didly squat!
These sharks get away with fleecing vulnerable people because they know full well the FCA are impotent.
Johnny Mercer is in a powerful position – that’s why he was recruited – to pressure the FCA and do some good – instead he makes the wrong decision – much like signing up with Crucial Academy was the wrong decision. Maybe he is prone to wrong decisions – if that is the case his constituents should get real, make the right decision and dump the guy!