The demise and resurrection of some old crumpet

Crumpet Cashmere took £150k off Crowdcube investors in 2014. Pippa you know who, 'loved ' their stuff. After a liquidation that has taken 2 years, the same founder is still running under the same name, racking up more losses and more debts.

How is that possible?

The founder Dana Juricic has now tried this game several times. We wrote about her here . Back in 2014 she arranged a pre pack deal for her first attempt, Crumpet England which had gone down owing £750k.

So when in 2015, a year after taking Crowdcube's money, she was failing again, she arranged the sale of all the company's assets to a company recently set up, called Ruby and Rude Ltd. She is the owner of Ruby and Rude. She paid £36k for the assets which she had had valued. The company debts were over £400k.

The liquidator, Mr De'ath - can this get any crazier? - accepted this deal!

Now Dana is trading as Crumpet Cashmere Ltd, even though this company no longer exists. 

Whatever - as you might expect the newco which is really called Ruby and Rudy Ltd, is loss making and she is piling up some new debts which she can run away from when the time is right. 

This one might make a movie.

Crowdcube's Cashmere Crumpet tries the Double Phoenix!!

This is a truly incredible story.

Back in 2014 Crumpet Cashmere pitched on Crowdcube. The pitch made little mention of the real circumstances behind the business. In fact it totally ignored most of the it.

The management team had started a company called Crumpet England which had got into trouble, so they used the prepacked deal route to off load the debts and start afresh. Crumpet England went down in flames owing over £750,000. The prepacked charged Crumpet Cashmere to pay £60k for the old assets, brand etc. The management of both companies were the same.

At the time that Crowdcube published the pitch for Crumpet Cashmere, the administrator's report shows that the management were in default of this payment for the old assets - or put simply they hadnt paid up. The administration had had to be extended to accommodate this default and had been forced to issue a Statutory Demand. 

These facts were never mentioned in the Crowdcube pitch. At the time this information was hard to get hold of for ordinary punters as the CH beta site wasnt running then. Chances are none of the investors knew of this default.

This is how the Crowdcube pitch described the collapse of Crumpet England in the Crumpet Cashmere pitch -

''During latter part 2012 and 2013, the business with the support of professional  advisers, undertook an in depth review of its activities and structure, which resulted in significant cuts to costs and overheads''.

The 'business plan' published in conjunction with the experts at Crowdcube states that Crumpet Cashmere had bought the brand in January 2013 - a fact we now know is rubbish. Caveat Emptor will no doubt cover any liability.

Only when questioned by us on the forum did they admit the pre packed deal part. By significant cuts we assume they meant leaving behind all their creditors. In essence investors in the Crowdcube pitch were having their investment in Crumpet Cashmere used to pay for the prepacked deal with Crumpet England - without their knowledge. 

This could have been useful information, given what we now know. Crumpet England was finally closed in October 2014, some 6 months after Crumpet Cashmere was already losing investors' money. Less than 12 months later, the money had all gone and the management team were looking for the next out.

Ruby and Rudy was incorporated on the 25 August 2015, just around this time. It has the same management team as both Crumpets. According to the liquidator for Crumpet Cashmere, its assets were sold to R&R for £3,000 before the company went into liquidation. The management team claim this was in the best interests of creditors. Creditors who according to the liquidator will receive nothing. 

All of this sad saga could easily have been avoided had the Crowdcube out to lunch dept been awake. Armed with the full story it seems likely that the pitch would have failed. This would have saved investors £160k and yet more creditors another £260k. 

We helped the Times put together a piece on this which came out today -  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/consumer/article4656180.ece 

Luke Lang of Crowdcube commented  - '' Investors can be assured that we are committed to ensuring transparency and have rigorous due diligence processes in place.” Phew that's fine then, we were worried things had got out of control.

Crumpet Cashmere liquidation - A tale of two goats.

Crumpet Cashmere was an accident waiting to happen.

The founders had already gone bust once owing £750k, done a prepacked deal which stated they were not be directors of the new Crumpet Cashmere, made themselves directors, raised money on Crowdcube and then only months later have gone bust again owing over £400,000 to creditors and shareholders.

So to date these two have cost almost £1.2m in terms of lost money in the space of 2 years. It would have been cheaper to pay them to stay at home.

As a final ironic twist Crowdcube are listed in the o/s creditors, owed a sum of £3,500.There is no money to pay anyone.

So why did so many people back these two? Beats us although it has a lot to do with the the way the pitch was allowed to be portrayed by Crowdcube - the previous failure was for example not mentioned until we brought it up in the forum.

It is an all too familiar story.

PS - you can expect this story to run as we find out just what has happened to Crumpet and its shareholders and creditors. Expect the unexpected!

Crumpet Cashmere had already done a prepacked deal - when wiil we learn?

This is fast becoming a farce.

Crumpet England went into Administration in 2012. The company was the same as the one that has just collapsed.

In the report the administrators have a pre packed deal with a company called Crumpet Cashmere Ltd. CC plan to buy the assets of Crumpet England for £80k - they eventually paid only £60k.. This left the company with a deficit of £750,000 owed to a mix of banks and creditors. 

It stipulates in this deal that the two founding directors of Crumpet England are not allowed to be directors of the newco. It states they will be 'employees'. In September 2013 both become directors of the newco Crumpet Cashmere and the 'director' put there by the administrators resigns. The final closure of Crumpet England only took place in October 2014, a whole year after these two had been made directors.

By March 2014 these two schemers are raising money on Crowdcube.

Now it remains to be seen if they will try this tactic again but I wouldnt put it past them.

Surely we need new rules for prepacked deals - you simply cant have people carrying on like this without any recourse for those they steal from.

This one has to be fraud

Crumpet Cashmere has called in the liquidators only a little more than a year after they raised £163k from 112 investors on Crowdcube.

This company had already gone bust once in 2012. The founders assured investors that lessons had been learnt but in the short period since the Crowdcube raise was finalised in July 2014, they have managed to burn the cash and close. Of course they have managed to pay off an outstanding charge.

This is hot off the press at CH so we dont yet have the final picture but will post it as soon as.


Clearly these people should not have been allowed out with a business again and certainly not allowed to use Crowdcube or any ECf platform to rip off the public.

Unfortunately with lite touch regulation and the ECf's platforms very poor due diligence, this is will become the norm rather than the exception.

Crowdcube are shareholders and so will know about this collapse - how long before their Undertakers Dept have removed all traces, is anyone's guess. These are busy times for the box makers.

More to follow on this one.