Now high-f lying Tory MP is dragged into savings scandal
A TORY MP tipped as a future Prime Minister was last night dragged into a scandal at a collapsed savings firm.
Johnny Mercer earns £85,000 a year for 20 hours of work a month for a firm linked to London Capital & Finance.
LCF went bust in January owing £237million to 11,500 savers who were sold toxic bonds in a scandal being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office. The vast majority were persuaded to invest by marketing firm Surge Group, owned by former police officer Paul Careless.
Mr Mercer, 37, the MP for Plymouth Moor View in Devon, is a non-executive director at a business controlled by Mr Careless and Surge, and based in the same building.
The former Army officer, is employed by Crucial Academy, which trains military veterans in cyber security. His register of interests filed with Parliament on Monday, says he started at Crucial last September. His £85,000-a-year contract works out at more than £350 an hour.
Companies House files show that Crucial Academy’s parent firm, the Crucial Group, is 25 per cent-owned by Mr Careless and 40 per cent by Surge.
Surge belongs to Mr Careless in its entirety, meaning he effectively owns a controlling 65 per cent of Crucial. Surge was paid as much as a quarter of savers’ money in commission when it sold bonds on behalf of LCF, earning an estimated £58million in fees, according to the savings firm’s administrator Smith & Williamson.
Finbarr O’Connell of Smith & Williamson, said: ‘I’ve asked Surge and Paul Careless to return any profits made by Surge from LCF to me for transmission to bondholders.’
The SFO is looking into a property investment company which Mr Careless, 43, owns with Elten Barker, whose other firms borrowed from LCF, according to the Sunday Times.
Savers thought LCF was pumping their money into a range of promising start-ups. Instead, it was given to just 12 firms in ‘highly suspicious’ transactions, say administrators.
Four arrests have been made by the SFO. There is no suggestion Mr Mercer knew anything about LCF or has done anything wrong. A spokesman for Surge said LCF was a Financial Conduct Authority regulated business and marketing material was signed off before publication.
It added: ‘Surge … did not handle client money and had no involvement in the deployment of funds.’
Mr Mercer did not respond to requests for comment. Crucial Academy declined to comment.