Last month it was revealed that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme has compensated investors in Providence Bonds and Secured Energy Bonds in full (up to £50,000), paying out a total of £10 million (£5 million for each).
Providence and Secured Energy Bonds paid interest of 8.25% and 6.5% per year. Both collapsed with total losses to investors.
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Rancor continues to circle the crumbling Carlauren Group.
Carlauren, reviewed here in April 2018, raised money from investors promising 10% per year returns from investment in care homes. The company run out of money to pay investors in February 2019, and its collapse has meant frail and elderly care home residents being ejected with 24 hours' notice, and hotel properties left to rot.
On the public Facebook group Sandown Hub, a resident of Sandown noticed that one of its former introducers, One Touch Property Investment (officially One Touch Solution Ltd), was apparently continuing to sell units in its care home.
One Touch clarified that it was no longer selling Carlauren investments. In the ensuing thread, it revealed that it has approached a "fraud litigation solicitor" on behalf of investors to pursue Carlauren over "misrepresentation".
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The administrators of Asset Life have released their initial report.
Asset Life plc, reviewed here in January 2018, raised £8.9 million from investors in three unregulated minibond issues (A, B and C). At the time of my review they were offering 8.75% per year for a three year term.
Series A and B investors were defaulted on when the return of their capital fell due. Asset Life plc asked them to give 12 months' grace, which some gave, but others refused. Asset Life was unable to repay those investors who insisted on getting their money back. Interest payments stopped in November 2018.
In May 2019, the FCA issued a warning (five years after Asset Life plc began operation) that Asset Life might be conducting regulated activities without authorisation.
Asset Life went into administration three months later in August 2019.
Continue reading...The administrators of Mederco, which ran a number of unregulated investment schemes including one involving spaces in the Bury FC car park, have released a six-monthly progress report.
Since the initial proposals in March, a secured creditor has emerged, Capital Bridging Finance Solutions. CBFS loaned £333,000 to Mederco secured on a basement car park in Bradford. Mederco director and former Bury owner Stewart Day had told the administrators that this had been repaid. CBFS have now told the administrators this was inaccurate and that £152,291 remains outstanding.
The administrators of collapsed unregulated property investment scheme Harewood Associates, Begbies Traynor, have released their first report.
Subsequent to the report, Harewood director Peter Kiely has signed a Statement of Affairs detailing how much of the company's assets remain to be realised to investors.
According to the Statement of Affairs, Harewood loaned a total of £40.5 million to other related companies.
Of this, only £3.9 million is expected to be realised.
According to the Evening Standard, the administrators of MJS Capital (aka Colarb) believe that CEO Shaun Prince has overstated its assets by £20 million.
Liquidator Asher Miller of David Rubin & Partners has written a report to creditors saying Colarb’s balance sheet cites assets of £39.7 million, of which Prince had said £27.7 million could be realised. However, the report says Prince’s figure appeared to be “overstated by £20 million or more” based on earlier documents signed by Prince and MJS’s two biggest portfolio companies.
Smith & Williamson, the administrators of the £230m FCA-authorised Ponzi scheme London Capital & Finance, have released their first six-monthly update to investors.
The administrators are currently envisaging a return of "as low as 25%" to investors. This is predominantly based on expected recoveries from Independent Oil & Gas. All other LCF assets remain of extremely uncertain value.
This is actually an improvement on S&W's initial forecast of 20% as a "best case" figure. But that is little cause for celebration, given that the LCF asset with the best hope of delivering returns for investors - the "jewel in the crown", in S&W's characteristically optimistic language - is its complex interests in Independent Oil and Gas.
An AIM listed oil exploration company may well have a better prospect of a return than, say, loans to failing resorts on Cape Verde, but that's not saying much.
