Eden Land Planning - Case Study

For those who like their information presented graphically, here are two diagrams. The first shows the Redruth Eden project as set out in the Investors Presentation document. The second shows the project as actually conducted by Eden Land Planning Ltd.  The Promise: 22 Investors raise a fund of £2.24m It is used to purchase land for £2.1m The land is sold for £3.1m Investor profit, £584,500  ELP profit, £250,500 The Reality: 22 Investors raise a fund of £2.24m It is used to purchase land for £1.475m but ELP conceals the purchase price. The surplus funds of £661,750 are quietly transferred from Redruth Eden to ELP. The land is unsold after nearly 6 years. The investors have had no returns. Shareholders' Agreement, Schedule 3 states: No Business Plan can be materially varied without Majority Shareholder Consent. Not only did Eden conduct a completely different project from the contractual Investors' Presentation version without seeking Shareholders' Consent, they did it cove

UPDATE: March 09, 2024 Eden Land Planning Ltd was 'advised to move their registered office' and duly did so early in March 2024.   ELP has also moved the registered office of the SPV, Redruth Eden Ltd, (and presumably the SPVs of all their current projects). The new registered address filed at Companies House is: 124 CITY ROAD  LONDON  ENGLAND  EC1V 2NX Capital Office is a company that provides virtual offices at 124 City Road. ELP will have no physical presence there. The rest of this page is out of date but may be useful for reference. The registered office address of both Eden Land Planning Ltd. and Redruth Eden Ltd. is:  201 Haverstock Hill, Second Floor, C/O FKGB, London, England, NW3 4QG   However, Eden Land Planning does not have a physical presence there. 201 Haverstock Hill has three floors of offices above Kavanagh's, a very fine food outlet: But the office space is wholly assigned to three companies, one per floor, thus: The receptionist for AEL Markhams Ltd (se

The Redruth Eden project has been running since June 2018. This page lists the main players and their roles (from my perspective) over the course of the project, beginning with... John Hunt - Mr Hunt is the Regional Sales Director for Highgrove Consulting Ltd. He also acted as a sales agent for Eden Land Planning Ltd for which he used an Eden email address. Mr Hunt introduced the Eden investment opportunity and issued the 'Investors Presentation'. In June 2018, at a face-to-face meeting in Malvern, UK, and in subsequent emails, Mr Hunt outlined and recommended Eden's Redruth project, to which we signed up. From June 2018 until Q3 2021, Mr Hunt was my sole contact for the project. All communication from Eden and their lawyers, ELS Legal, was routed through Mr Hunt. I do not know how many such agents Eden employed. By Q3 2021, the project had all but stalled and Eden's quarterly updates were inadequate and usually late. Mr Hunt said he was unable to answer my questions.

In June & July 2018, Eden Land Planning raised £2,240,000 from 22 investors. A typical individual investment was £100,000. Now, more than five years into the project, Eden is proposing to sell the Redruth site for a sum close to the original investment capital. Eden says this will allow them to return 'most of' the investment capital to the investors. This is, of course, grossly inadequate. To keep pace with inflation, £100,000 invested in July 2018 should have grown to £134,309 by September 2023, according to data from the Office for National Statistics: The reason for Eden's dismal failure even to keep pace with inflation is very clear. From the original investment fund of £2,240,000 they invested only £1,475,000 in land at Redruth. They also spent just over £100,000 on stamp duty and legal costs around acquisition. The remaining £661,750 they quietly retained without the investors' knowledge or permission and have been at pains to keep that fact secret for the

Gentlemen, There follows a clear description of financial and ethical misconduct in your handling of the Redruth-Eden investment project. My figures are accurate to within 1%. Your Investors Presentation document (which is contractual) inflated the acquisition costs by £661,750 . You falsely claimed total acquisition costs of £2,200,000 . The true figure was £1,538,250 . On completion of purchase, ELS Legal transferred  £661,750  from their Client Account into Eden Land Planning's Account. You did not seek the investors' permission for this transfer. In fact, you have concealed it for more than five years, just as you concealed the true purchase price of £1,475,000 . You have even filed falsified accounts year-on-year at Companies House, tailored to conceal the transfer of £661,750 from Redruth Eden Ltd to Eden Land Planning Ltd. When I asked you to account for the £661,750 , you claimed, without evidence, to have spent it in project operations.  Even if your claim were true,

The Shareholders' Agreement (8.2) requires the Company (Redruth Eden Ltd) to issue annual accounts to the Shareholders. This never happened. However, the filleted accounts were submitted annually to Companies House and are therefore public domain. The figures presented here are those lodged with Companies House. The 2019 fixed assets figure, £1,577,340 appears to be the total acquisition cost comprising purchase price, professional fees and stamp duty. As professional fees and stamp duty are non-returnable expenses, it is unclear why they are classed as fixed assets. The true purchase price of £1,475,000 might have made more sense here. The 2019 current assets figure, £660,867, is the sum remaining after acquisition. (I had calculated it to be £661,750, accurate to better than 1%). This is the portion of investment capital that was transferred from Redruth Eden Ltd. to Eden Land Planning Ltd. without the investors' knowledge. As the transfer occurred on completion of purchase (

I produced this page in response to an observation that I had not made sufficiently clear the relationship between the companies, Eden Land Planning Ltd. and Redruth Eden Ltd., and also the distinction between tangible assets and company shares. Thus, the information here is not new but is intended to clear any confusion of terms. In July 2018, the directors of the parent company, Eden Land Planning Ltd., established a new company, technically a Special Purpose Vehicle, (SPV), called Redruth Eden Ltd. with themselves as directors. Initially, Redruth Eden Ltd. had no assets. There followed a period of fund-raising, based on an Investors Presentation document. 22 Investors contributed a total of £2,240,000. Prior to acquisition, the total assets of Redruth Eden Ltd. peaked at £2,240,000 in the form of money held in ELS Legal's client account. The Investors Presentation stated: Acquisition costs, £2,200,000, Professional fees, £40,000. Immediately on completion of purchase, the total