Was AVRO trading illegally or fraudulently for the last 2+ years? Was it like a Ponzi Scheme?

StartledJesus

ihatetrump said:

….. and their involvement in Dyball Associates - rotten to the core.

No doubt they will be repenting at leisure in a succession of American states…

How many of the bust suppliers were they actually involved in, besides Avro, with the blessing of Ofgem, and, of course, not actually doing anything illegal? Just sailing very close to the wind on their yachts, apparently.

ihatetrump

StartledJesus said:

ihatetrump said:

….. and their involvement in Dyball Associates - rotten to the core.

No doubt they will be repenting at leisure in a succession of American states…

How many of the bust suppliers were they actually involved in, besides Avro, with the blessing of Ofgem, and, of course, not actually doing anything illegal? Just sailing very close to the wind on their yachts, apparently.

There's so many unanswered questions about AVRO.

For example:

Jake & his dad incorporated AVRO Group in 2016 with £100 share capital - it remained dormant until 2019 after which it the acquired AVRO Energy in a share swap. Then on 2 July 2020 they incorporated AVRO Data & Technology for £1 share capital - as a subsidiary of AVRO Group Ltd. 15 days later, AVRO Data & Technology acquired a 60% shareholding in Dyball Associates Ltd for £2M consideration plus a further £3M in deferred consideration and £4,647,271 in cash in the acquired entity!!  Sounds like another scam to me. 

Neither AVRO Group or AVRO Data and Technology appear to have any cash to buy Dyball, so where did it come from? - I certainly hope the Administrators of AVRO Energy will be following the money on this one. Incidentally, the Administrators have just filed an update on AVRO, which can be found here:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09174794/filing-history

Here's an interesting snip from their future strategy:

 

StartledJesus

@ihatetrump See also this short thread. There’s a link to a 45 page report posted by @MWT that you might be interested in.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6355586/octopus-may-not-be-reimbursed-for-some-solr-payments/p1

Might the directors be disqualified, then? 

MWT

StartledJesus said:

@ihatetrump See also this short thread. There’s a link to a 45 page report posted by @MWT that you might be interested in.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6355586/octopus-may-not-be-reimbursed-for-some-solr-payments/p1

Might the directors be disqualified, then? 

The Administrators have a duty to consider that as part of their investigations, but they will not disclose their thoughts on that topic until they reach a conclusion.

ihatetrump

StartledJesus said:

@ihatetrump See also this short thread. There’s a link to a 45 page report posted by @MWT that you might be interested in.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6355586/octopus-may-not-be-reimbursed-for-some-solr-payments/p1

Might the directors be disqualified, then? 

That's the same report I referred to in my thread but thanks for the link to the other thread.

@MWT - thanks for your comments - I can see you take an interest in AVRO also!

The main point of my post of yesterday is how the Browns of AVRO fame have managed to acquire a controlling interest in Dyball Associates. Here's a an interesting piece on Dyball from last September (yes I know it's the Daily Mail blah blah blah!):

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10028689/The-man-whos-fortune-helping-set-SEVEN-collapsed-energy-suppliers.html

AS per my earlier post, the Browns set up AVRO Group and this owned AVRO Energy - note that AVRO is not in Administration and the Browns own it 100%. Through another SPV they setup AVRO Data & Technology in July 2020 and almost immediately acquired a 60% controlling in Dyball Holdings (the owner of Dyball Associates). 

The accounts of AVRO Group for the period ending June 30 2021 mention the acquisition as follows:


So how did AVRO Group get it's hands on the cash to buy Dyball? 

There's a multitude of things wrong with the AVRO Group financial statements (hopefully the Administrators of AVRO Energy will examine the trail here and dig up the dirt):

• on 28/06/2021 the Directors (Jake) shortened their accounting period by 1 day - a ploy to buy an extra 90 days to file the accounts for the year end 30/06/2020. 
• The Directors then failed to file accounts by the due date and were faced with a compulsory strike off, which they avoided by filing on 28/01/2022. Their incompetence however did not acknowledge the shortened accounting period and they still filed for the year ended 30/06/2020.
• They didn't file company accounts, just group accounts that included AVRO Energy - even though Energy was in administration and itself had failed to file accounts for the same period.
• The size of the company mandates a statutory audit - the auditors disclaimed an opinion however with the following note:

• Energy went into administration, on the day of the final deadline for filing audited financial statements (they'd already extended by 90 days with their usual ploy of a 1 day shortening of the accounting period) - the auditors lack of access to books, records and financial systems tells a real story - and yet the auditors were paid £50,250 for this lack of an opinion or audit!.- why? 
• Transactions with Directors are noted here:

• So Jake and or his Dad took cash advances - where did they get the cash from? and was it ever repaid? AVRO Group was not trading so presumably its' only source of cash was AVRO Energy. The initial report from the Administrators of Energy, revealed Directors' Loan Accounts totalling £395,148 @ 28/09/21. By 09/12/21, Jake Brown had signed a statement of truth saying the Directors Loan accounts were £5,149 - did Jake and his dad repay £390,000 between 28/09/21 and 09/12/21? or did something else happen? The latest administrators report only mentions the £5,149 being repaid - what about the rest? 
• The same initial report from the administrators revealed that Energy owed Dyball Associates £245,276 - i hope that the administrators have picked up the Browns' indirect ownership of Dyball?

The list goes on and on  - I'm sure there's more buried out there - I just hope the forensic accountants get to the bottom of it and bring any wrongdoing to light. 

wakeupalarm

£700 million price for Avro failure.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/26/how-ex-footballers-energy-gamble-ended-up-costing-bill-payers-700m-avro

Between 2019 and 2020, those customers – who paid for their energy in advance – funded £4.25m in “management charges” funnelled to Sentido Marketing, owned and controlled by Brown, now 28, and his father, Philip, 58, the company’s other director.

During the same period, Avro, based in Hinckley in Leicestershire, lent £700,000 to its owner-directors, the same father-and-son team. It also lent another £830,000 to Berkeley Swiss Ltd, a property development company whose directors and majority owners should be obvious by now: Jake and Philip Brown.

In September 2021, having racked up losses of £55m in seven years, Avro collapsed into administration, owing £90m to its 580,000 customers.

What_time_is_it

Well colour me shocked.
A private company raking in cash from it's customers. Isn't that what they are supposed to do?

Regulation will only ever be a game of trying to catch up.
Nationalise the energy sector.

Sea_Shell

I wonder if any action will be taken against them?   If so by whom?

Or is it just a case of "that's business", with a shrug of the shoulders. ☹️

ihatetrump

Way back in September 2021 just a few days before AVRO failed, I started this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6298311/how-can-so-many-energy-companies-fail-whos-next-avro-igloo-symbio-colorado-neon-reef/p1

Prophetic at the time, although, I'm no Sage of Omaha! 

There's nothing really new in the Guardian article that wasn't in the original thread - except probably the scale of the losses that Jake and his Dad managed to run up - no one knew because they were successful in evading/delaying filing accounts or having a credible audit by changing the company year end by a day. 

What perhaps is really frightening is that they are still out there doing their stuff in the sector and no doubt lining their greasy pockets further at the expense of others.

They had other companies under the AVRO name that didn't go under and they've now changed the names of most of them so they become less recognisable - try these:

AVRO GROUP - now called 0001AG Limited
AVRO Commercial Shipping - now called TERAX Commodities Limited
AVRO Commercial Energy - now called Commotex Holdings Limited
AVRO Commercial Energy Trading - now called Commotex Limited (formerly TEXAS Energy and a company setup by Andrew Dyball (see below) and sold to the Browns way back when)

Try following their links with Andrew Dyball and their (now) control of Dyball Associates - another shady organisation by the looks of it. They seem to be managing to stay one step ahead all the time.

The best way to stop them will be if the Administrators of AVRO Energy grow a pair and continue with their investigations as noted on Page 20 of their last report (Future Strategy) which reads:

 

Hopefully in due time, they'll be invited to spend some time at Her Majesty's Pleasure - it's what they deserve!