London Capital and Finance

redux

nrsql wrote: »

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.

There is a lot of speculation in your post, quite a bit after the end of this quote.

Crucial appears to be suggesting it is taking legal action over the BBC report.

The BBC report says some things, and does not say others. It says Surge money funded Crucial, but it doesn't allege Crucial involved in LCF business, or any other corruption.

The denials by Crucial or by Mercer seem to say almost the same thing as the BBC, including uncoincidentally exactly the same amount of money. Once can imagine mounting a defence might not present a huge challenge to the BBC's lawyers.

Mercer's statement says when the historic links between Surge Group and Crucial Group were discovered in the accounts action was taken to separate Crucial and Surge.

Discovered by whom? By the directors, or by people outside the company? Surely this £325k of finance can't have been a surprise to the directors. Mr Jones was a director of 2 Surge (continuing) and 4 Crucial (resigned on 9th April) companies, and the companies have the same registered office listed, which is the trading premises of Surge. As I suggested above, if these companies are now completely separate perhaps Mr Williams and Mr Mercer should strengthen the separation by ensuring Companies House updates its records of Crucial companies' registered office(s).

Just to be clear, I am not implying Williams and Mercer would have known about Surge involvement in LCF. Nobody here is. Nor is the BBC.

billyolly

GDB2222 wrote: »

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.

I am giving my opinion ,people are free to do and think whatever they please.
I know of M Ps doing lots of charity work in there spare time and helping local causes

GDB2222

billyolly wrote: »

I am giving my opinion ,people are free to do and think whatever they please.
I know of M Ps doing lots of charity work in there spare time and helping local causes

You have not condemned Jeremy for spending his time on his market gardening. Why the dual standards? Jeremy could be devoting that time to charitable work, after all.

I think there's an awful lot of petty jealousy going on. Ian Hislop roasts Mercer for having a second job, but Hislop has a second job and earns vastly more.

There's no morals involved in this campaign against the man, Just spite.

rr755507

GDB2222 wrote: »

Ian Hislop roasts Mercer for having a second job, but Hislop has a second job and earns vastly more.

I must of missed this part, when did Ian roast him for just having a second job?

nrsql

redux wrote: »

There is a lot of speculation in your post, quite a bit after the end of this quote.

Crucial appears to be suggesting it is taking legal action over the BBC report.

The BBC report says some things, and does not say others. It says Surge money funded Crucial, but it doesn't allege Crucial involved in LCF business, or any other corruption.

The denials by Crucial or by Mercer seem to say almost the same thing as the BBC, including uncoincidentally exactly the same amount of money. Once can imagine mounting a defence might not present a huge challenge to the BBC's lawyers.

Mercer's statement says when the historic links between Surge Group and Crucial Group were discovered in the accounts action was taken to separate Crucial and Surge.

Discovered by whom? By the directors, or by people outside the company? Surely this £325k of finance can't have been a surprise to the directors. Mr Jones was a director of 2 Surge (continuing) and 4 Crucial (resigned on 9th April) companies, and the companies have the same registered office listed, which is the trading premises of Surge. As I suggested above, if these companies are now completely separate perhaps Mr Williams and Mr Mercer should strengthen the separation by ensuring Companies House updates its records of Crucial companies' registered office(s).

Just to be clear, I am not implying Williams and Mercer would have known about Surge involvement in LCF. Nobody here is. Nor is the BBC.

Yep -mostly speculation.

I was suggesting the connection between Crucial and LCF is quite close. Mercer said it was 4 Companies distant but if we consider the two closely connected companies as one then it becomes
LCF - Surge - Crucial

I tried to suggest that the connection should have been obvious especially as Careless ran both Surge and Crucial. Could be that Mercer just asked Careless and believed what he was told.
I also suggested that the dissolving of the connection was possibly(?) due to publicity but it could have just been naivete.

The main point was that I didn't think Mercer came across too badly in hignfy but a bit more digging shows that he needs to do a bit more explaining.

Was the company really set up by the tree ex-marines or by Careless. Again could be that Careless was looking to build a company or it could have been akin to money laundering.

p.s. With an average of £28K income there would be expected to be a fair number over £85K which is why I said it's not too far removed (only 3 times). Would need to look at the standard deviation but that's why I pointed out the highest value.
There are a lot more things you could criticise Mercer for - e.g. employing his wife, going on a reality tv show - but there are a number of things that he has been targeted for which look a bit nebulous.

rr755507

nrsql wrote: »

The main point was that I didn't think Mercer came across too badly in hignfy but a bit more digging shows that he needs to do a bit more explaining.

Really? He came across as a complete moron to me. He has handled this whole situation rather badly. The libel nonsense is laughable.

nrsql

There's a summary of higinfy and the bbc libel case here which seems to follow what I suggested.

https://bondreview.co.uk/2019/04/27/johnny-mercer-appears-on-the-bbcs-have-i-got-news-for-you-while-suing-them-for-libel/

Mercer does have things to explain but they weren't followed or even brought up properly on hignfy which is why I thought he came across reasonably. Don't know whether Hislop didn't do his research or was being cautious about what he said or maybe didn't think he needed to justify slurs.

Not sure the diagrams reflect the libel case but maybe.
I'm guessing that Mercer's point is that Crucial Group has other sources of funding so you can't say that Crucial Academy received the money (just) from LCF or Surge.
Would need to look at Crucial Groups accounts.

I suspect when Mercer joined Crucial he maybe didn't know about the connection between Surge and LCF and if he did would he have realised there was anything wrong - it was just one of Surge's clients and how much could he know about Surge's operations.

Bits where Hislop had a point
Mercer saying that the money didn't come directly or indirectly from LCF
Hislop asking why he doesn't do it for free

But wasn't followed up.

nrsql

Looking at the history of Crucial I'm leaning towards it being incorporated as a means of getting (laundering?) funds out of Surge.
Hopefully that's wrong or maybe the people involved now are genuine.

That's with hindsight.

nrsql

Suspect this might be the source of the libel action?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-47884273
24 Apr 19

>>
Surge Group then loaned £325,095 to the Crucial Group, which owns Crucial Academy.

An industry expert told the BBC the cost of training 80 people on the courses provided by Crucial would be about £240,000.

When added to the cost of Mr Mercer's £85,000 salary, the total almost exactly matches the amount loaned to Crucial Group.

In a statement to the BBC, representatives of Surge Group said that all financial links with the Crucial Group had now been severed.
>>

Not sure the connection between Surge and Crucial Academy has been made. The amounts may match but I suspect there has has been cherry picking to do that Even so it doesn't show a connection. Crucial has other activities.

More of a concern - this article 24 Apr. Careless/Surge removed from Crucial 26 Apr same day as hignfy.
The Surge issues were public long before this and I would have expected Mercer to notice that Careless was involved. Could be that the change of management took a long time but the timing looks "coincidental".

Reed_Richards

UK redress scheme accused of misleading London Capital & Finance investors

https://www.ft.com/content/c1aa46e4-6b62-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d