Dolphin Trust accounts in “total mess”, no money left, says administrator

The administrator of Dolphin Trust (latterly known as German Property Group, and referred to here by its more well-known and less generic name) has revealed that the accounts are in a “total mess”. As reported by FT Adviser:

In a letter in August partner Tim Beyer wrote: “Please note that we have found a total mess over here. It will take at least to the end of September before the insolvency court will have issued court orders for all companies of the GPG group. 

“And due to the fact that the bookkeeping, the documentation and all other relevant information regarding assets, money, etc. are incomplete, not available in the first place or just a total mess, we probably need at least until the beginning of 2021 before we are in a position to talk about any concrete investment or assets.”

Beyer also revealed that the Dolphin companies have been emptied of funds.

“And all of this we have to do with nearly no money on the accounts of the companies of the GPG group,” he said.

Dolphin Trust / GPG and its personnel extensively raised funds in the UK via a combination of unregulated introducers, fraudulent pension liberation schemes, and Nicola “Superwoman” Horlick’s Money & Co platform, where it used the name “Project Seascape”.

An attempt to enter the Intelligent Finance ISA market, again via Horlick’s Money & Co, this time using the name “Grounds Investment plc”, resulted in an abrupt reverse ferret. All Grounds funds were returned to investors in August 2019, only a few months after the launch. By that point Dolphin’s problems were already out in the open, after the BBC reported on them in May 2019.

The UK’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme is now likely to be on the hook for any Dolphin investors who were missold their investments via FCA-regulated companies. The FSCS has indicated that it may assume that Dolphin investments as being worthless and take over any recoveries on behalf of investors.