Thread by @DamianHastie

Covid Contract 🧵No 8

Clandeboye Agencies a confectionary wholesaler from Antrim. Won DHSC contracts worth £107.5 million

I have followed this company for the last 3+ years, to try & uncover their profits

This thread also highlights an issue with the Govt DHSC spend reports

Clandeboye won 2 contracts for gowns. I also believe they supplied NHS Wales.

Their DHSC contracts have been well documented. Good Law Project, Panorama & other covering the award of these contracts

I wanted to understand what profit they made

As part of any investigation facts need cross referencing & in this case the contracts are both visible on UK contracts finder.

DHSC spend though only shows spend of £69.3 million. Not £107.5 million. So £38.2 million difference

Why?

When looking at this & spend on other contracts. It would appear that the DHSC spend reports show no spend on PPE until mid June 2020

Therefore suppliers PPE invoices from April to Mid June are not reported. No transparency, no records & another example of lack of DHSC controls

Without this data, I can only assume that Clandeboye delivered all their contracts

The next step is to examine Clandeboye Agencies accounts. This is a bit of a web. So I will try & simplify it as much as possible

Clandeboye Agencies accts were extended until 31st Jan 21 & don't show much for a company who had supplied over a £100 million in PPE.
Shareholder funds had increased by approx £1.3 million but they also owed another company (Alpinebeat Unlimited) with the same directors £675k

In June 2020 just after they won the contracts, the directors formed a holding company called Clady Holdings Ltd

The first Clady Holdings company accounts show in July 21 that they owed another company owned by the same directors £6.27 million, shareholders funds showed just 22k

So the directors other company (not named) had lent Clady Holdings £6.27 million

I have checked all the companies owned by the directors & surmise it could only be Alpinebeat Unlimited incorporated Sept 2020 & the same one that had lent £675k to Clandeboye Agencies

As this is an unlimited company they don't need to file accounts. But it would suggest they had creditors in Clandeboye Agencies & Clady Holdings of £6.9 million.

Clandeboye Agencies & Clady Holdings have no mention of the loans on their next accounts!

This would suggest that the £6.9 million had been paid back to Alpinebeat Unlimited

The directors have also incorporated 2 new companies Clady Group & Dunsilly Holdings. The capital invested in these companies £2.8 million

Finally they also opened & closed a company

Transport & Logistics Limited incorporated in Dec 2020 & wound down Jan 22.

All the companies accounts were completed by the Plymouth Brethren owned UBT Accountants

A complex web that leads to potentially 3 companies that didn't exist pre covid worth up to £9.7 million

In summary the DHSC transparency on spend must be questioned & I hope you found it interesting to see how a contract winner can create new companies & move the money around.

Thank you for reading. Covid contract thread 9 coming over the weekend.