The Mail on Sunday

The tiler, the banned liquidator . . . and a missing £2.8 million

- Tony Hetheringt­on

B.D. writes: In 2019, I took out a one-year bond for £5,000 with Quinshaw Finance, which promised interest at 4.85 per cent. Interest arrived monthly, but when the bond matured in 2020 I heard nothing until an email said Quinshaw had only limited staff working because of Covid. I was promised extra interest because of this, but since then emails have been unanswered and I have not received my £5,000.

I AM afraid the signs are bad. Very bad. The formal name of the company is Quinshaw Group Limited, and because it is unable to pay investors or anyone else, a provisiona­l liquidator has been appointed ahead of a court hearing next Wednesday.

Quinshaw was set up in June 2018 but did not become active until May 2019. It has just one director, Paul Hopeton Daye, who gives an address in Buckingham Palace Road in London and describes himself as a property developer.

However, my own enquiries show that he is not in London, and nor is he a property developer. He is a 51year-old tiler in Nottingham, who advertises locally that this has been his trade for more than 30 years.

Investors were sucked in by interest rates that beat those available from banks, but were not so high that they looked risky. Quinshaw’s marketing claimed: ‘ Quinshaw Finance is an alternativ­e property lender which focuses on helping developers secure funding quickly with a competitiv­e rate.’

Money from investors was lent out to developers, and Quinshaw’s bonds were perfectly safe because they were secured against property. At least that was the idea. The reality was different.

I have identified three of Quinshaw’s bond salesmen. Two previously worked for wine investment companies, with one describing himself as ‘a fine wine consultant working for BWC Management & Consulting’. I sounded the alarm on BWC two years ago, and victims of this scam are likely to recover less than a penny for every pound they invested. Hardly a recommenda­tion for the salesman’s advice.

For many investors, the first sign that Quinshaw was in trouble came in a letter from a Birmingham firm called GDS Consulting. The writer was Mrs Gagen Sharma, who announced: ‘I have been instructed by the directors…to assist in placing the company into liquidatio­n.’

This was weird for more than one reason. Why mention ‘directors’ – plural – when there is only one? And how would Paul Daye, a tiler in Nottingham, even know about GDS Consulting in Birmingham?

Even more significan­tly, why seek liquidatio­n advice from Gagen Sharma? She is actually banned from being a liquidator. I wrote about her in 2015, after she was the liquidator of a scam PPI claims company called Client Connection.

Just before it collapsed, more than £ 12 million was withdrawn from its accounts. A court hearing found that Sharma spent less than four hours investigat­ing the directors’ conduct and then told the company’s victims there was no money to pay them. Her own fees were almost £140,000.

A year later, she was in trouble over another company, after paying out £548,000 to a creditor who was not entitled to anything, and who promptly vanished with the cash. Other creditors sued her, and she was declared bankrupt. She is currently barred from controllin­g any limited company or acting as a liquidator until July 2025.

I asked Sharma repeatedly to say who approached her from Quinshaw. She refused to answer, telling me: ‘You will appreciate that due to client confidenti­ality I am unable to comment.’

Yet she told investors she was appointed by Quinshaw’s directors. Is she hinting that Paul Daye was a front man, and others were really in charge? This would be no surprise.

Sharma has also revealed that Nottingham­shire Police are investigat­ing Quinshaw. I am sure they will look at the company’s official balance sheet, which shows that in 2019 it held cash of over £2 million, with almost £800,000 more expected from investors. Where has this gone?

Paul Daye was repeatedly invited to comment but did not reply. When I finally got through to him by phone last Thursday and asked point blank whether he was really in control of Quinshaw, he replied: ‘I can’t say.’ When I asked again, he said: ‘Got to go, mate, I’m driving.’

That was the end of the conversati­on, but I am sure the police will ask exactly the same thing, and that will be a harder conversati­on for him to end.

If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetheringt­on at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony. hetheringt­on@mailonsund­ay.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.

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 ??  ?? PROMISE: Quinshaw sucked in investors by offering interest rates on property bonds that beat those offered by banks
PROMISE: Quinshaw sucked in investors by offering interest rates on property bonds that beat those offered by banks
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