London Capital and Finance

AnotherJoe

masonic wrote: »

The other route open to bondholders is a complaint against the FCA, for which there is also precedent, but is also far from guaranteed.

Indeed and given the three year lag between being notified by people in the industry on LC&Fs misleading marketing, and taking action, that one might have legs.

Lungboy

The BBC have picked up the Mercer story https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-47884273.

billyolly

Can anyone please explain the point of the bond holders country wide meetings?We can ask questions to the administrators if we want ,nothing we can do can alter what the administrators find out anyway .On the outside it seems like an expensive P R exercise only loosing bond holders more money ,please excuse the cynic in me

GDB2222

billyolly wrote: »

Can anyone please explain the point of the bond holders country wide meetings?We can ask questions to the administrators if we want ,nothing we can do can alter what the administrators find out anyway .On the outside it seems like an expensive P R exercise only loosing bond holders more money ,please excuse the cynic in me

It may save money if the administrators are having to field a lot of individual questions, I suppose. This way, they dispose of them in bulk, and they can stop answering questions and get on with their job.

Out of interest, suppose your share of the easily recovered money comes to say £2000, how much of that would you like to see spent on trying to recover money that's hard to get hold of? That might be a fruitful endeavour and bring you another £10000, or it might fail entirely so its just throwing good money after bad.

Malthusian

billyolly wrote: »

Can anyone please explain the point of the bond holders country wide meetings?We can ask questions to the administrators if we want ,nothing we can do can alter what the administrators find out anyway .On the outside it seems like an expensive P R exercise only loosing bond holders more money ,please excuse the cynic in me

The point is that it might make some bondholders feel better.

There is a material possibility that the handful of millions that was still in LCF's accounts when they were frozen will be frittered away on attempting recoveries against Surge and certain individuals, very possibly without success, and crossing their fingers for years waiting for Independent Oil and Gas to repay what it owes. I can't see it will make much difference to spend a few billable hours giving LCF investors a chance to vent.

Malthusian

GDB2222 wrote: »

Out of interest, suppose your share of the easily recovered money comes to say £2000, how much of that would you like to see spent on trying to recover money that's hard to get hold of? That might be a fruitful endeavour and bring you another £10000, or it might fail entirely so its just throwing good money after bad.

A very good question but the answer is unlikely to come into it. Administrators have a statutory duty to maximise recoveries. If they try to recover £10 million from Mr Dodgy who has hopped it to Dubai, hire the finest legal minds available with what is left in the pot to sue him, recover zilch, and consequently there is nothing left in the pot after paying the legal fees, they have fulfilled their duty.

If they give up and return a few meaningless pennies in the pound to investors rather than spend it on legal fees, which will not improve investors' lifestyles or make them feel any better, they are vulnerable to aggrieved creditors hiring a few ambulance chasers to say they should have tried harder.

GDB2222

I expect that they probably have a bit more discretion than that in fulfilling their statutory duties, but I take your point.

AnotherJoe

Malthusian wrote: »

A very good question but the answer is unlikely to come into it. Administrators have a statutory duty to maximise recoveries. If they try to recover £10 million from Mr Dodgy who has hopped it to Dubai, hire the finest legal minds available with what is left in the pot to sue him, recover zilch, and consequently there is nothing left in the pot after paying the legal fees, they have fulfilled their duty.

If they give up and return a few meaningless pennies in the pound to investors rather than spend it on legal fees, which will not improve investors' lifestyles or make them feel any better, they are vulnerable to aggrieved creditors hiring a few ambulance chasers to say they should have tried harder.

Do they have a duty to maximise "recoveries"(eg money direct from people who owe the company) or the total amount paid back to creditors?
Because in the former case and under your reasoning they should spend a million to recover a penny, which seems to make no sense and I would have thought might lead them open to challenge.
If the law is not an "animal of the horse family, which is typically smaller than a horse and has longer ears and a braying call", than you'd think they should take measured appropriate actions.

antrobus

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Do they have a duty to maximise "recoveries"(eg money direct from people who owe the company) or the total amount paid back to creditors?
Because in the former case and under your reasoning they should spend a million to recover a penny, which seems to make no sense and I would have thought might lead them open to challenge.
If the law is not an "animal of the horse family, which is typically smaller than a horse and has longer ears and a braying call", than you'd think they should take measured appropriate actions.

Yes, what I think the poster concerned fails to appreciate is that if the administrators believe there is a chance of recovering £10 million from Mr Dodgy, they will take legal advice.

If that advice is that there is little or no prospect of recovery, they will not proceed, and then wave said advice in front of any aggrieved creditors who question the decision.

Malthusian

antrobus wrote: »

Yes, what I think the poster concerned fails to appreciate is that if the administrators believe there is a chance of recovering £10 million from Mr Dodgy, they will take legal advice.

If that advice is that there is little or no prospect of recovery, they will not proceed, and then wave said advice in front of any aggrieved creditors who question the decision.

If you mean me I appreciate that perfectly well. I also appreciate that if the advice is that there may be a prospect of recovery, and their legal advisers are then given the job and spend a lot of money trying to recover the £10 million to no avail, they will be able to wave the initial advice in front of any aggrieved creditors who question "wasting" all that money on legal fees and administrators' fees.