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INTRODUCTION
This Blog is dedicated to making public some of the business activities and methods of Liam Collins, David Bone Jr and their associates. In the spring of 2010, the present authors invested in Collins & Bone (C&B), who were offering an enticing 8-10% interest on the basis of buying houses for cash, renovating them and letting them out to students. We were assured that our money was secured against houses that they owned, including their own homes and the properties held by their associated company, Castle & Gatehouse (C&G). We have emails and brochures that confirm these details, as do others who invested on this same basis at around the same time. The idea worked for us for over a year, then in November 2011 they told us they were insolvent. They refused our every request for clear accounts, which led us to suspect wrongdoing. We began an investigation and then started this Blog. We found our suspicions confirmed: other investors had lost sometimes quite large amounts to C&B and its predecessor CBS, and all requests for repayment were adamantly refused. These people use and have used so many names that we found it necessary to compress them into CoBo (for Collins & Bone) and Coboco (for the whole bunch of them – there are quite a few!) Note that there is an index in the margin at the right hand side.

Monday 12 August 2013

DAVID BONE JR - THE OR's FINDINGS OF MISCONDUCT

We received today a copy of David Bone Jr's BRU (Bankruptcy Restriction Undertaking) from the Official Receiver. Liam Collins's BRU will follow in a few days. Following below is an extract from the above mentioned document. (Note that David Bone Jr has put his signature to all of these findings).

"The matters of misconduct admitted were:

"Between 5 November 2010 and 29 April 2011, David Bone (“Mr Bone”) continued to accept investments from members of the public by way of promissory notes totalling £187,500 in contravention of the Financial Services Marketing Act 2000 (FSMA) and despite being explicitly requested to cease doing so by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). Mr Bone also failed to notify existing investors of their statutory rights under the FSMA as required by the FSA on 26 October 2010.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011, whilst trading in partnership with Liam Collins as property investment, lettings and renovation, Mr Bone caused the misappropriation of investor monies totalling at least £874,000. In particular:

"At January 2010, the Collins and Bone partnership (“C&B”) had existing liabilities under promissory notes totalling £3,047,845, given to investors in a group of companies that had gone into liquidation on 18 December 2009, and of which Liam Collins and Mr Bone were directors. 

"From January 2010, although not personally responsible for sales, Mr Bone allowed misleading representations to be made to members of the public to induce further investments in C&B.

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 further investments totalling at least £874,000 by way of Promissory Note were accepted by C&B. Mr Bone was indirectly involved in several Joint Venture Agreements and he believed that the future revenue streams of those agreements had the potential to repay investors as C&B were not formally party to those agreements C&B investors had no legal entitlement to any potential funds arising from, or legal recourse against the third parties contracted to, those Joint Venture Agreements. 

"Between January 2010 and April 2011 C&B, did not undertake any business activity relating to that which the investors would have reasonably expected their investments to have been applied given the representations of C&B.

"Between January 2010 and September 2011, although not personally responsible for investor communications, in providing explanations for the delay in payments properly due to investors from C&B under the terms of Promissory Notes issued, Mr Bone allowed Liam Collins to provide inaccurate information concerning the valuation of assets held by the partnership,  the estimate of expected income receipts from third party ventures and the likelihood that investors would receive payments due in the future."

NB  The areas of misconduct by the partners refer to C&B investors from January 2010. The matter of the bona fide CBS investors, on the other hand, who have seen more than £3 million disappear so far without trace has yet to be properly investigated.

4 comments:

  1. Congratulations (if that's the correct term) to all investors who helped achieve these BRUs. It's a first major step in finding out where our money is.

    Thank you to the Insolvency Service for their hard work too, it's very much appreciated.

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  2. I heartily agree and we shouldn't forget to thank Sally and Jasmine for this outstanding blog.

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  3. Re: Trustees fees.
    I note that the Trustees are racking up charges in the thousands if not tens of thousands - according to your circular 190813(b).

    A question:

    I don't recall entering into any contractual arrangement with the Trustees nor do I imaging do other investors. Am I right to assume that no investor has any obligation to pay these people? If so, from where do they expect to get the money, given that Liam Collins has openly said the money is spent, and given that no realisable assets have been found other than possibly a bit of equity in 25 Shelton Street?

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  4. Thank you for your interest. Please see our latest post.

    ReplyDelete