Daily Mail, Thursday, August 29, 2019
Page 75
Restaurants
find bargains
on High Street
RESTAURANT chains Loungers and
Franco Manca are benefiting from
the High Street gloom as they
snap up sites abandoned by rivals
in cut-price deals.
They have refused to pay land-
lords higher rents, enabling them
to press on with expansion plans.
Restaurants have been hit by
higher rents, crippling business
rates and the higher minimum
wage. Many have closed outlets,
with Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s Italian,
burger chain Byron and Italian
eatery Carluccio’s among
those struggling.
But Loungers, which listed on
the stock market in April, said
sales jumped 26pc to £153m in the
year to April 21 as it was boosted
by new sites. The bar and restau-
rant operator opened 25 outlets,
taking its total to 146.
Earnings climbed by almost a
quarter to £20.6m.
Fulham Shore said sales so far
this year have jumped as a result
of new openings – it has unveiled
five Franco Manca pizzerias this
year and is in talks to open more.
But in a sign of the malaise grip-
ping many restaurant chains, Pizza
Express blamed higher costs as
profits fell 8pc to £32.4m in the
first six months of the year.The luxury goods that
may repay LCF savers
by Matt Oliver
HORSES, a helicopter and
land in the Dominican
Republic are among assets
that could be sold to pay
back savers caught in the
collapse of London Capital
& Finance (LCF).
The firm went bust owing
£237m to 11,500 customers and
is being wound down by admin-
istrators, the financial services
group Smith & Williamson.
Savers thought their money was
being invested in hundreds of
firms but investigators have
found bosses poured it into their
own luxury lifestyle ventures.
Administrators are now seeking
to raise as much cash as possible
to refund savers from a sprawling
range of assets held by a web of
companies with links to business-
men at the heart of the scandal.
So far, vehicles and a horsebox
owned by LCF have been sold for
£202,122. Smith & Williamson are
pursuing a helicopter, horses and
land that was to be developed as
resorts in Dominican Republic.
However, it is feared that savers
may get only a quarter of their
cash back. And in a fresh blow, an
update yesterday said a part-
refund expected at the end of this
summer was likely to be delayed.
The slow progress has been
partly blamed on a lack of coop-
eration from businessmen con-
nected to LCF. Administrators
said ‘many millions of pounds’
were funnelled to Simon Hume-
Kendall, Elten Barker, Andy
Thomson and Spencer Golding,
business associates with ties to
firms given LCF investors’ cash.
But all four men, who were
arrested in March in connection
with the LCF scandal, have pro-
vided little assistance.
Thomson and Hume-Kendall
originally ‘verbally agreed’ to
hand over money they received
until LCF bondholders were
repaid in full, administrators
claim, but Thomson now dis-
putes this. And Golding and
Barker were asked to enter a sim-
ilar arrangement but have since
indicated they would not do so.
Administrators said the debts
owed to LCF as of Januaryincluded £154.6m by London
Group, an outfit owned by Hume-
Kendall and Barker. They have
been unable to account for a total
of £28.5m made in loans to two
London Group subsidiaries.
And Portuguese lawyers have
been brought in to help recover
£12m in debts owed by two of
its other subsidiaries that were
supposedly building resorts in
Cape Verde, off west Africa.
LCF is also owed £70.1m by
Prime Resort Development
and £12.3m by FS Equestrian
Services, which Golding was a
patron of. Prime Resort is
thought to own land in the
Dominican Republic which
LCF may have rights to.
Administrators are trying totrack down information on
horses owned by FS Equestrian
Services. A further £839,776 plus
interest is owed by London
Financial Group, the parent of
LCF which Thomson was sole
director and shareholder of.
Its assets include a helicop-
ter formerly owned by Gold-
ing which administrators want
to sell. Smith & Williamson
may take legal action to
recoup funds in some cases
and has run up a bill of £2.3m
for services so far.
Administrator Finbarr
O’Connell said: ‘[It] has been
extraordinarily complex. To make
matters worse, administrators
have had almost no cooperation
from the main parties involved
with LCF, both the company and
its borrowers, which the adminis-
trators consider to be deliberate
and probably coordinated.
‘These matters have signifi-
cantly added to both time and
cost. What is encouraging how-
ever is the work is bearing fruit
and is expected to result in fur-
ther recoveries.’FTSE failing on pension gap
FEWER than one in seven
FTSE 100 companies have taken
immediate action to close the
pension gap between executives
and shop floor staff.
Thirteen of the UK’s largest
companies have succumbed to
pressure from shareholders and
MPs to cut the pension contri-
butions of top directors.
There has been widespread
outrage that bosses receive
annual pension payments worth
as much as 45pc of their base
salary, while workers typically
receive between 5pc and 15pc.
Four companies, including Per-
simmon and Centrica, have cut
pension payouts for directors.
At housebuilder Persimmon
they will be brought in line with
the workforce in 2020, while Brit-
ish Gas owner Centrica is to cap
contributions at 15pc.
A further six, including HSBC
and RSA Insurance, have cut
pension payments for current
directors as well as future hires,
says The Investment Associa-
tion. BT, Aviva and RBS have
appointed new directors with
pension contributions in line
with their workforces.
But around 70 firms have notbudged. Last year 48 chief exec-
utives were handed pension
cash worth more than 25pc of
their salary. A further 25 received
more than 15pc of their salary.
Frank Field MP, chairman of
the work and pensions commit-
tee said: ‘Thirty companies mak-
ing changes after this year’s
AGMs is a welcome, if inevitable,
first step, but the spotlight of
scrutiny is not going to go away.’
Chris Cummings, of the Invest-
ment Association, said: ‘Share-
holders want pension payments
to come down to the same level
as the rest of the workforce.’BRITISH businesses which choose not to list on
the stock market may soon attract a new deep-
pocketed backer.
Norway’s £850bn sovereign wealth fund wants
to change its investment rules to allow it to back
unlisted companies.
That would allow the world’s largest fund,
which is managed by Norges Bank, to back US
tech giants such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which
steer clear of the stock market.
But Norges will also eye Britain, whose tech
sector pulled in more foreign investment in the
first seven months of 2019 than anywhere other
than China. London is home to 13 ‘unicorn busi-
nesses’, valued at more than $1bn (£820m).
Increasingly these companies are choosing to
remain unlisted for longer, and investors like
Norges want a piece of the action. The bank has
asked Norway’s government to let 1pc of the
fund be ploughed into unlisted companies.
Norway looking to
back UK’s unicorns
MILLIONS of pounds’ worth of gold bars are
being fraudulently stamped with the logos of
major refineries to dodge anti-money laundering
and illegal mining rules.
This ‘dirty gold’ is usually very high purity, like a
normal gold bar, but will probably have been
bought with the proceeds of crime.
At least 1,000 have been found but Michael
Mesaric, the chief executive of refinery Valcambi,
said there are probably ‘way more in circulation’.
Gold refineries stamp the bars with their weight,
purity and a unique registration number, to let
buyers know the gold is from a reputable source.
But sophisticated criminals are counterfeiting
the marks, to allow gold obtained illicitly to be
traded in return for cash or other assets.
Major bank JP Morgan recently found at least
two gold kilobars in its vaults with the same iden-
tification number, an indication that they are
fakes. In the last three years, fraudulent bars
worth £40m have been found in JP Morgan vaults
and by all four major Swiss refineries.Crooks cash in on
counterfeit gold
Helicopter and horses could be seized and sold
Riches: Simon Hume-Kendall and his wife enjoyed an opulent lifestyle