Lidex Trading claims to provide a “Lidex Trading Multi Asset Fund” paying a fixed dividend of 21% per year, although in their very next paragraph they claim the dividend is 10% a year.
According to a reader, Lidex Trading are cold-calling investors, falsely claiming to be following up a query from the investor.
How safe is the investment?
Lidex Trading claims that it
employs programmatic strategies to guide its asset allocation processes and leverages key strategic partnerships to ensure efficient deployment of capital Lidex Trading [sic] is led by a veteran team of asset management, venture, and technology professionals with decades of collective experience.
It also claims
The Lidex Trading Multi Asset Fund is a 3 year fund that purchases equity in the top 25 private companies and uses computer science to trade on forex, commodities and stocks and shares , providing a fixed dividend of 21% a year from fund liquidity which can be paid monthly, quarterly or per annum to fund members.
In its very next paragraph the return suddenly changes from 21% to 10% a year.
This fund is completely unique and stand alone offering the stability of seeing your capital gain a fixed dividend of 10% a year with the excitement of large cash payments as companies list and grow.
Leaving aside Lidex’s meaningless gibberish, if Lidex Trading was actually running a “Multi Asset Fund” investing in whatever in the UK, this would require registration for the FCA.
Just to remove any ambiguity, Lidex Trading helpfully confirms that is committing a criminal offence, stating in its footer “The investment products marketed by Lidex Trading are regulated by the financial conduct authority. [sic]”
Lidex Trading is not registered with the FCA. Lidex claims to be “FCA registered through our trustee”, Capital Emerging Markets. This however is false as if it was regulated as an “appointed representative”, it would still appear on the FCA register in its own right. This means that Lidex Trading would be committing a criminal offence if it was running a collective fund as it claims.
Lidex’s claim to provide consistent dividends of 21% per year also fails the Ponzi smell test. If Lidex really was able to generate consistent returns of 21% each year, it would keep it to itself, and not dilute its returns by sharing its secret with the market. If it did look for external investment, it would do so very quietly, and not break the law by cold-calling people at random.
Lidex provides no evidence of generating consistent dividends of 21% per year since 2015, because they don’t exist. Any returns paid to investors come from investors’ own money or those of another, making Lidex a Ponzi scheme.
Who are Lidex Trading?
Lidex Trading claims “we have been trading in the UK since 2015” and there is a Lidex Trading Limited on Companies House which was founded that year. However Lidex Trading’s website (lidextrading.co.uk) was only launched in 2019.
In a further example of Lidex Trading’s extreme laziness when it comes to scamming investors, the names of its supposed “Team”, such as CEO “James Wilson”, are completely different to the directors of Lidex Trading Limited on Companies House.
There is a distinct possibility that the Lidex Trading Limited on Companies House is blameless and someone has simply copied their name.
Who Lidex Trading actually are is unknown. No photos are supplied on its “Team” page and “James Wilson” and its other directors probably do not exist. The domain was registered anonymously.
Should I invest with Lidex Trading?
This blog does not give financial advice. The following are statements of publicly available facts or widely accepted investment principles, not a personalised recommendation. Investors should consult a regulated independent financial adviser if they are in any doubt.
Any investment offering yields of up to 21% should be considered extremely high risk – especially when they can’t even make up their minds as to what the “fixed” yield is.
Before investing investors should ask themselves:
- How would I feel if the investment defaulted and I lost 100% of my money?
- Is my portfolio big enough that I could lose 100% of my investment and not worry about it?
Most importantly, investors should think long and hard before handing their money to a company that lies about being FCA authorised, is breaking the law by operating an unauthorised collective scheme (even if its Multi Asset Fund exists, which it probably doesn’t), and can’t even keep its story straight from one sentence to the next.
It’s one thing to be scammed and another to be scammed by something so embarrassingly inept.
Do not invest unless you are prepared to lose all your money.
Other variants of the same scam
My research on Lidex led me to two websites which have copied and pasted much of their material from the same place as Lidex.
Specifically IPO-Dex (which claims to be a trading name of Fink Asset Management) and Ashdown Trading.
Both IPO-Dex and Ashdown Trading are also scams in much the same way as Lidex. All share substantially similar marketing material and falsely claim to be appointed representatives of Capital International Emerging Markets Fund (which has nothing to do with them).
There is already an FCA warning about IPO-Dex, while Fink Asset Management is not registered with the FCA, nor is Ashdown Trading. The fact that these companies are blatantly operating illegally, added to their nonsensical claims about non-existent returns, identify all three companies as scams.
As a low-effort, high-churn variety of scam, it is likely that more variants on the same scam will pop up in the coming months until the scammers either get caught (unlikely) or they have fully exhausted the market for their particular spiel (far more likely).