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.

The Times of London has revealed that of the £60 million commission paid by London Capital & Finance to its marketing agent Surge, £26 million was spent on marketing, of which £20 million went to Google.

Google was paid more than £20 million to promote high-risk mini-bonds for London Capital & Finance, the collapsed investment firm at the centre of a fraud investigation.

The Times has learnt that Surge Group, a digital marketing firm that was contracted by LCF to raise capital from investors, used the bulk of the money it spent on marketing to buy advertising via the search engine giant.

A person close to the matter said Surge spent about £26 million on marketing for LCF between 2015 and last year, with about 90 per cent of that sum going to Google.