Thoughts on Finance, Current Affairs and General Consumer Ripoffs - Damn Lies and Statistics

Surge Financial in Brighton were the company running the sales & marketing team for London Capital & Finance as well as Blackmore Bonds, a similar high risk mini bond company that was also targeting savers via the Top ISA Rates comparison websites. Life at Surge Financial looks fun but I guess when you're getting up to 20% commission on the sale of high risk bonds there is plenty of money to keep the staff happy and the directors able to run their Ferraris and helicopters. The Ferrari owned by Paul Careless in the photos is a GT3 Lusso registration  HF18CYA It looks like life at Surge was a great place to be for employees with nail bar visits to the offices, ice creams served by "Captain Careless", fun competitions, hair cuts on site and other perks. Strangely since the news about London Capital Finance broke they have removed their social media accounts and hidden the images Back in 2018 there was also Surge Fest which was a free eve...

Who are the People behind London Capital & Finance? On the Information Memorandum supplied to all investors there are three people listed as the management team of  London Capital & Finance, however there are other people who are listed as shareholders or directors of the company and Security Trustees Martin Binks Katherine Simpson Michael Andrew Thomson also known as Andy Thomson Andy Thomson and Katherine Simpson are also listed as directors of  London Capital & Finance Katherine Simpson Katherine Simpson, London Capital Finance, Image: Facebook As well as working for LCF, Katherine Simpson also runs her own HR consultancy business JDS HR Ltd based from Deal in Kent. One can only assume her role at London Capital & Finance was as a figurehead as running her own consultancy in parallel and having only 6 staff at LCF it wouldn't have been a demanding HR role. Michael Andrew Thomson also known as  Andy Thomson Andy Thomson took ...

The collapse of yet another company offering unsecured mini bonds has highlighted once more the misleading phrases used around their promotion that have ensnared unwary savers into thinking they were buying something that they weren't. Mini bonds - Does Asset secured Mean they are safe As the above advert for London Capital & Finance shows the "full asset backed security" was given high prominence to investors alongside their claim of 100% track record. If you believed that this claim of asset backing meant that your investment was secure then you were misled. As was shown with the company Secured Energy Bonds the words "asset backed" have absolutely no meaning in reality when there are no assets to be found to repay the bondholders. Secured energy bonds These are all unregulated investments so the "asset backed" claim doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to get your money back. Interestingly despite a company called Secure Energy...

The administrators of London Capital & Finance have now confirmed the number of loans that they made with the £236 million of bondholders' money that was handed over to the company. According to their 2017 accounts LCF had 11 borrowers and loans outstanding of £58 million. As of January 2019 they still only had 12 borrowers but a massive £236 million of loans made. This means that the average loan per company has increased from £5 million to almost £20 million in that time. Administrators claiming  only 12 loans is slightly misleading . LCF may have only lent money to 12 companies but at least some of those companies have lent money on to multiple companies themselves. One example is London Oil and Gas that is shown to have made loans to both Independent Oil & Gas and Atlantic Petroleum. This multi layer lending will make analysis of the recovery prospects much more difficult. I've been able to identify the companies that have charges on their accounts in favour ...

The administrators appointed by LCF and approved by FCA and the courts to manage the company have already raised concerns over their actions. The first issue is the fact that S&W have already referred to those who bought bonds as ALL being High Net worth or sophisticated investors which might limit action about mis-selling and certainly goes against the FCA ruling from last week. The majority of people I've seen saying they are bondholders are definitely not in this category and people putting their life savings into LCF bonds thinking it's a savings product do not meet the criteria.  Secondly I thought the interview with Finbarr of S&W on BBC Moneybox was very odd. On the one hand was saying it was early days but alongside that saying that all money was accounted for in loans that were being repaid, assets in place and sounding like it was a very positive situation. If it's early days then surely it is far too early to know. The loans being repaid by borrowers d...

Dear Sir / Madam, London Capital & Finance Plc (in administration) (‘LCF’) We are writing to you, as you are a Bondholder of LCF. On 30 January 2019, LCF entered into administration. Finbarr O’Connell, Adam Stephens, Colin Hardman and Henry Shinners of Smith & Williamson LLP were appointed Administrators of LCF. This email has been written by the Administrators to you to update you on the position with regard to the administration of LCF. There has been some press and social media comment about LCF and LCF’s prospects in recent weeks but we appreciate that the fact that LCF has gone into administration is likely to come as a shock to you. We are very mindful of Bondholders’ (and other creditors) understandable concerns about the current situation. What we are doing Our work is at an early stage. We are already working with the Company’s existing staff and LCF’s borrowers to ascertain what needs to be done in order to maximise the returns to the Bondholders. We are especially fo...

What happens if I had an ISA with London Capital & Finance? If you had an ISA with LCF then that ISA allowance is entirely dependent on the amount that is eventually recovered by the administrators. LCF call centre staff appear to be claiming that LCF is not insolvent and "it's only administration". That claim is completely contradicted by the FCA statement on London Capital Finance today  that clearly says the Directors of LCF realised it was insolvent so called administrators in. London Capital & Finance ISA - What Happens Next? Some people had transferred large sums from cash ISAs to LCF, in some cases, many tens of thousands of pounds encouraged by the promise of high rates of return and misled by the advertising that suggested it was safe and FCA regulated. Unlike a cash ISA where your allowance is a fixed amount so if you pay in the annual ISA allowance of £20,000 you can then transfer the £20,000 plus interest to another ISA provider, with inve...