Ian Beckett Profile picture
Jan 14 6 tweets 6 min read
@retheauditors @premnsikka 1/‘ Investigation in to #AIM listed #RevolutionBeauty unveils "serious issues" over the way the business was allegedly run under previous senior managers’. Revolution hired Macfarlanes to investigate after their long term auditors #BDO ‘reared up’.
2/ Yesterday it reportedly emerged that Macfarlanes had discovered Revolution made "unacceptable" loans to senior managers, requested distributors book orders worth £9m to meet y/end financial targets + failed to consider key info. when acquiring a company owned by its chairman.
3/ Revolution’s auditor prior/during/post #AIM listing was #BDO. BDO & Mazars were criticised in 2022 by the UK audit regulator #FRC for ‘unacceptable’ audits (the worst auditors inspected for the 2nd year running). Meanwhile over in the US ‘BDO USA botched more than half of …
4/ its audits inspected by the US #audit regulator #PCAOB in 2021’. Revolution’s head of it’s audit committee was ex-#KPMG ‘big hitter’ (ex co-Chairman) Derek Zissman. 18 months ago Revolution listed (~£500m) on #AIM (the then 6th largest fund raise on AIM ever) at £1.60, …
5/ now it trades at £0.19 (~£60m) after CFO resignation, director resignations, audit ‘shit-show’ share suspension & grisly investigation findings. Revolution’s AIM NOMAD & Broker was/is #ZeusCapital - in 2017 the FT wrote ‘Zeus Capital faces scrutiny after client woes’.
6/6 But, the Zeus’ allegedly had other fish to fry, via a now imploded #QROPS/#SIPP op (the subject of a future expose), leaving the tab with @FSCS/victims as the claims came in. #Blackmore.

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More from @ianbeckett

Jan 15
@retheauditors @premnsikka 1/ “Flipping Hell”: #LSE listed taxpayer funded homeless/vulnerable accommodation op & #BDO audited ‘#HomeReit built on poor foundations’. CityAM, three days ago wrote: ‘#HomeREIT faces legal threat from biggest tenant over £5.5m rent relief deal’ … Image
2/ (cityam.com/home-reit-face…). A week earlier it was reported that #HomeReit’s ‘investment adviser’ (‘Alvarium’) had (prior to its #SPAC merger) spun out the unit ‘advising’ #HomeReit (‘Alvarium Home REIT Advisors Ltd’) allegedly to a newly created shell, … ImageImageImage
3/ before, along with wealth manager #TiedemannGroup, a #SPAC merger (Nasdaq listing) with ‘#CartesianGrowthCorporation (ex-#AIG emerging markets PE funds crew from back in the day). The #HomeReit board allegedly in effect ‘subcontracted the business’ operation to Alvarium’, ImageImage
Read 15 tweets
Dec 27, 2022
@ArmitageJim @premnsikka 1/ Offshore #PSP (Payment Service Provider) #CheckoutDOTcom (formerly #OpusPayments) - “Checkout”: ‘how Europe’s most valuable start-up lost its crown’ (ft.com/content/308048…). Checkout (like it’s PSP brethren) was ‘formally’ authorised by the … ImageImage
2/ UK’s blind eyed financial regulator (@TheFCA, formerly #FSA) in 12/2012, following implementation of the 2011 #Emoney regulations: Checkout’s website would follow months later. The FCA’s ‘#Emoney scene’ has been long covered by a thick ‘FCA fog’ which scandal … Image
3/ after scandal has sunk in to (#Wirecard, #AlliedWallet, #Payza etc - the subjects of future exposes). Little is known from the press about Checkout (precursor: #OpusPayments) - many press articles read like the same company press release, simply regurgitated.
Read 16 tweets
Dec 22, 2022
@retheauditors @premnsikka 1/ UK audit regulator #FRC fines #Deloitte £1.25m (£906k) c/w ‘severe reprimand’ over building materials distributor #SIGplc #audit failures. Deloitte’s audit partner Simon Manning fined £50k (£36k) - frc.org.uk/news/december-….
2/ Unsurprisingly for this type of business the ‘old chestnuts’ of y/end cash & supplier rebates reared their heads. A whistleblower reportedly ‘identified issues’ at its UK insulation & interiors subsidiary: ‘SIG Distribution’. KMPG were reportedly brought in to investigate.
3/ In 2018 SIG announced “With support from KPMG, the group has completed a review of financial reporting controls at SIG Distribution, which identified no further material accounting cause for concern” + “a number of employees are leaving the business” (insider.co.uk/company-result…).
Read 5 tweets
Dec 22, 2022
@ArmitageJim @premnsikka 1/ ‘Key US law enforcement aide being investigated for allegedly extorting former Venezuelan officials’. But questions hang over Spain’s allegations that Martin Rodil exploited ties to US officials (icij.org/inside-icij/20…).
2/2 Getting on for a decade ago Bloomberg published a rip-roaring tale of US resident Venezuelan emigre chauffeur Martin Rodil, also working at the IMF as a data entry clerk entering #MoneyLaundering data - he allegedly became a US ‘deep state’/Israeli intelligence ‘middleman’.
Addendum 1/2 : for those interested in the mechanics of the alleged laundromat, the US indictment (USA v Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad) gives quite a bit of detail including the ‘double trouble’ of Swiss/Dubai/London banks & Nevis passports (drive.google.com/file/d/14Q6NsU….
Read 4 tweets
Dec 20, 2022
@ArmitageJim @premnsikka 1/ #TSB Bank fined by UK regulator (@TheFCA) £48m over ‘serious failings’ in IT platform meltdown (theguardian.com/business/2022/…). TSB was acquired by Spain's #BancoSabadell in 2015 + shunted on to the infamous ‘Sabadell Proteo’ spawned IT platform.
2/ “We have created a more digital, agile & flexible TSB,” said Paul Pester, CEO of TSB, at the unveiling of the bank’s new technology platform, Proteo4UK in 2017 (fintechfutures.com/2017/12/tsb-un…). However, switchover in April 2018 resulted in the loss of internet & mobile banking …
3/ services for many customers for > a week. Some customers reported seeing detailed account information of other customers, including balances of accounts other than their own. Paul Pester, then chief executive, stated that TSB was "on its knees"(bbc.co.uk/news/business-… AND …
Read 4 tweets
Aug 11, 2022
@ArmitageJim @premnsikka - 1/ A corrupt solicitor: ‘Timothy Schools’, who named his firm ‘ATM’ because it was "a cash machine" for litigation awards has been convicted of a notorious #fraud - the £120m #Axiom Legal Financing Fund “Axiom”. Axiom was launched in 2009 as an …
2/ offshore fund (+ its associated ‘fund manager’ - Tangerine Investment Management’ - “#Tangerine”), purportedly providing litigation finance to small UK solicitors firms for low value high volume claims. It was peddled to the UK public & expats widely by a large web of …
3/ @theFCA made men/women & their associated unauthorised cold calling cowboys in the FCA’s SIPPshittery, @TPRgovuk’s pension liberation scams + allegedly ‘wrapped’ (in purportedly ‘insurance bonds’/SIPPs) by the FCA’s ‘Big Fish’ & peddled particularly to older …
Read 18 tweets

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