London Capital and Finance

masonic

Malthusian wrote: »

Poor !!!!!!. He looks very tired. Well, poor is probably the wrong word here. Point is, you need a limitless supply of vim and vigour to keep making serious dough in this game, and by his own admission he hasn't got it. Bash the wine gums on resignation in the next week.

I think it was one of the most cringe-worthy performances I've seen on that show, and there is plenty of competition. At least Merton got him to stop is nervous tapping.

talexuser

I think the poor dear was abject from the Whips trying to find "dirt" on him and the fallout from the part time job - which was supposed to be a nice little earner for doing nothing on the old boys network - but has turned out to be a poisoned chalice in terms of reputation and what he might well be remembered for above anything else (see Andrew Mitchell's plebs).

sully1311

Does anyone think that Blackmore Bonds will be going under soon? They still haven't launched any new 'bonds' and it's been nearly a month since the new year has started.

nrsql

Umm, I thought Mercer came across quite well on hignfy.
He runs a company (Crucial Academy, actually owned by Neil Williams) that trains veterans in cyber security - that sounds like a good thing.
LCF is dubious but there are 3 companies between that and Crucial Academy - presumably one being Surge Financial and another Surge Group.
I think the issue is that Johnny Mercer receives a salary from Crucial and Crucial has received funding from Surge Group which marketed for LCF.

When he mentioned 4 companies of separation that could mean
LCF - Surge Financial - Surge Group - Crucial Group - Crucial Academy
Which doesn't look good but didn't come up in hignfy.
Also it is not clear whether Surge has done anything wrong other than morally.

Another thing that didn't come up was that this isn't the only source of funding.
It is also funded by government CSIIF (Cyber Skills Immediate Impact Fund) - one of four companies given a total of half a million.
So we could say it is receiving taxpayer funding and has government approval.
The BBC alleged that Surge Group loaned Crucial Academy
But the loan was repaid as soon as the link to LCF was highlighted.
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2019/04/24/company-linked-to-mp-taking-legal-action-over-bbc-report/

This says that the link to LCF was through two other companies so presumably as I stated earlier.
But it also says that Johnny Mercer joined in Autumn last year and as soon as the link to LCF was discovered there was a management buyout (previously Paul Careless of Surge) of Crucial and the loan repaid.

I would have thought the salary received by Mercer is reasonable considering his history and current status.

There are possibilities here
Mercer knew what was going on and that Surge were receiving 25% commission and the funding was scamming investors and has tried to mitigate bad press.
He was only there to get the government funding. That is supported by the Careless involvement?

Mercer didn't really care what (funding) was going on as he was happy to help a company aiding veterans and receive a salary. As soon as he realised how the company was funded removed the dubious directors and paid back the loan.

Mercer did due diligence but was lied to, relied on the FCA and government to vet the company. As soon as he found out the issue he did the right thing.

It looks like Surge Group, Paul Careless and Neil Williams were running Crucial Group until 23 Apr 2019. Before then they all had more than 25% of shares so Careless and Surge had a controlling interest. Now Williams has more than 75%.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11018399/officers

It will be interesting see how Crucial are doing. If it turns out they are providing training and services to cyber security then all well and good. If it turns out they are doing very little other than gaining funding then ...
It was set up in March 2018 by three ex-Royal Marines to offer free training and jobs to veterans. I guess the training arm wouldn't make any money so income would be via job placement and service provision.
It does look like Crucial Group are a genuine startup IT company but we'll have to see.

jimjames

nrsql wrote: »

I would have thought the salary received by Mercer is reasonable considering his history and current status.

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. I can't see how £85k for 4 hours a week is possibly justified for a startup that has trained very few people. That's the sort of salary you might expect for one of the large training companies that has thousands of people trained each year and certainly not a startup that has been running for 12 months or so

GDB2222

I used to teach in a university, and it took me many hours to prepare each lecture. So, if 4 hours a week is 4 hours of teaching time, there could be lots of hours of preparation on top of that, particularly with a brand new course.

nrsql

jimjames wrote: »

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion. I can't see how £85k for 4 hours a week is possibly justified for a startup that has trained very few people. That's the sort of salary you might expect for one of the large training companies that has thousands of people trained each year and certainly not a startup that has been running for 12 months or so

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/03/nearly-one-in-five-mps-have-regular-paid-work-outside-parliament

119 MPs earn £279K per month - that's an average of £28K per annum so £85K is not that far from the mean. Maximum was £765K so the data was probably very skewed.
I would have thought it quite valuable to the company to have an MP if they are trying to attract government funding and to provide services to public institutions.
I've been at startups that have paid a lot more than that for a figurehead let alone for someone that might actually produce something.
It's a lot easier for a startup to justify that sort of expenditure when its mainly in the marketing and development stage.

billyolly

nrsql wrote: »

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/03/nearly-one-in-five-mps-have-regular-paid-work-outside-parliament

119 MPs earn £279K per month - that's an average of £28K per annum so £85K is not that far from the mean. Maximum was £765K so the data was probably very skewed.
I would have thought it quite valuable to the company to have an MP if they are trying to attract government funding and to provide services to public institutions.
I've been at startups that have paid a lot more than that for a figurehead let alone for someone that might actually produce something.
It's a lot easier for a startup to justify that sort of expenditure when its mainly in the marketing and development stage.

M Ps have chosen to stand for public office knowing the pay and other benefits.They have been elected by there constituents to represent there constituencies.In my opinion they should give there time to helping and representing the the people who elected them.Every constituency has multiple and often complex problems and M Ps should be devoting there time and energy representing there constituents.
Apologies for going of LCF thread

coyrls

nrsql wrote: »

119 MPs earn £279K per month - that's an average of £28K per annum so £85K is not that far from the mean.

In what world is £85K per annum not far from £28K per annum?

GDB2222

billyolly wrote: »

M Ps have chosen to stand for public office knowing the pay and other benefits.They have been elected by there constituents to represent there constituencies.In my opinion they should give there time to helping and representing the the people who elected them.Every constituency has multiple and often complex problems and M Ps should be devoting there time and energy representing there constituents.
Apologies for going of LCF thread

How many hours a week are you saying MPs should work? Are you saying they should have no spare time at all?

Or are you saying what they should do in their spare time?

It's all a bit puzzling. Lots of people have full time jobs and still have time for a part time job on top. I'm not sure why MPs are different? Even Jeremy Corbyn does a bit of market gardening on the side.