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Tuesday, 30 April 2019

Fund on Crowdcube wait six months and then close with massive debts. Walk Away. A Classic from Country Matters



This one is hard to believe. Only months ago, the Directors of Country Matters were on Crowdcube telling everyone what a great investment this was. In January 2019 they went into administration with over £600k of unpaid bills and loans. Crowdcube shareholders are not even mentioned in the Statement of Affairs. 119 of them invested £130,000 in May 2018.

Crowdcube is an FCA regulated platform - just in case you wondered how this sort of thing is allowed.

As the Founders state, Country Matters dealt in Classics. Well this has to go down as one of those.

They have taken HSBC for £250k and Lendingcrowd for another £123,000.

According to the filed report, the company lost a significant customer in 2017 - roughly 25% of their turnover, as Countywide Farmers plc went into Administration.

Now we are just guessing but I'll bet my hat that this wasnt revealed to Crowdcube investors in May of 2018 on the FCA regulated platform. Is it reasonable to assume that at least some of them might have had second thoughts about investing if they had had this information? Given that 25% of the company's revenue had sailed into the sunset. And given that now it is the main reason the Directors are reporting for the business' failure.

It reminds me of a car purchase a friend had some years back. The vendor told him that the engine was new. He bought the car. The engine packed in. He took it back. 'Ooooh said the vendor  - the engine was new - it was new to the car'.

It is odd that in the whole of their report, which goes into some detail on the business in 2017 and 2018, there is no mention at all of the Crowdcube funding round. This is shown at CH as being completed in May of 2018. By November 2018 we are told that the company had some serious cash issues and was heavily overdrawn. So simple Q - where is the bleeding money mate?

As in other cases we are highlighting at the moment, it is almost as if the Administrators  - Begbies Traynor, Birmingham, have ignored this important cash inflow. But that would be negligence so it is unlikely.

Let's hope they had some fun along the way and that someone somewhere will make them pay for it. Many small creditors listed. An absolute shocker.

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