Independence for Scotland group founder’s business is wound up

THE founder and chief executive of the pro-independence group Business for Scotland has admitted losing “a significant amount of money” after his sole business venture was wound up.

Gordon Macintyre-Kemp, who is behind a new fundraising campaign for a second referendum, put more than £50,000 into a social media consultancy that ended with net assets of £594.

Intelligise Limited, which was based at Mr Macintyre-Kemp’s home in Jordanhill, Glasgow, was “dissolved via voluntary strike-off” in February 2016, The Herald can reveal.

In a video appeal for the “Business for Scotland Indyref2 Crowdfunder” last week, Mr Macintyre-Kemp said: “We are business owners, directors and entrepreneurs.”

However, he now has no outside business of his own, and is a fulltime salaried employee of Business for Scotland, the donation-funded think tank he set up in August 2012.

He said switching career to fight for a Yes vote cost him money.

Mr Macintyre-Kemp, 50, who formerly worked in marketing, founded Intelligise in 2009 as a “rapid growth optimisation social media and engagement marketing consultancy” aimed at blue chip firms keen to get more out of social media; he was its sole director and shareholder.

An archive copy of the now-vanished Intelligise website states: “We stay small so Gordon MacIntyreKemp can lead every project with additional skills being brought in from a trusted list of best practice subcontractors as required.”

But its accounts suggest much of the cash going through the firm came from Mr Macintyre-Kemp himself, with loans of £10,445, £7,000 and £35,000 in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

The first two loans were subsequently repaid, according to the final set of accounts, which covered the year to January 31, 2014.

Debtors and cash at the bank then amounted to £51,819 and £783, giving total assets of £52,602, but the amount owed to creditors was £52,008, leaving net assets of £594.

Mr Macintyre-Kemp, who still calls himself @theintelligiser on Twitter, told The Herald: “I decided to change my career from running Intelligise to becoming a full-time campaigner for independence, and as a direct result of that the business did not carry on. But I don’t regret it one little bit.”