LCF founder fails to honour pledge

TWO individuals in the London Capital & Finance scandal have not yet paid any money or assets to the firm’s administrators, despite pledging to do so.

The failed savings company went bust in January owing £237m to 11,500 customers who had invested in its mini-bonds.

Administrators Smith & Williamson have traced LCF funds to a number of small companies that were unlikely to pay them back.

Smith & Williamson had asked four people to pay bondholders’ money they had received into an escrow account, which could potentially be handed back to customers.

Two of these, LCF chief executive Andy Thomson and its founder Simon Hume-Kendall, now boss of LCF’s biggest borrower, pledged to do so.

Thomson said he would repay £3.7m, while Hume-Kendall said he would provide an assetbacked personal guarantee for around £15m. But Mike Stubbs, a lawyer at Mishcon de Reya involved in the administration, said this ‘has not yet happened, it is in the hands of their lawyers’.