Eden Land Planning - Case Study

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. About £100,000 was spent 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 last five

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, you had £661,750 transferred from ELS Legal's 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 asked 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 0.12%!) 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 (27 July 2

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

If you invested £100,000, then, according to Eden Land Planning's prospectus: £1,786 would go towards Professional Fees, and £98,214 would be used to purchase land at Redruth, Cornwall. That is what you agreed to in July, 2018. What really happened to your £100,000 was more like this: £1,786 went on Professional Fees, and £2,823 went on Stamp Duty, £65,848 was used to purchase land, and £29,542 was retained by Eden without your knowledge. Remember, all this happened 2 months  before Eden asked you to sign the Shareholders' Agreement. If challenged, Eden will argue that, in signing the Shareholders' Agreement, you agreed that any surplus money after completion of purchase be transferred from Redruth Eden to Eden Land Planning. But, 2 months before the signature date of the Shareholders' Agreement, Eden's Lawyer, ELS Legal, had receipted your investment of £100,000 and told you by letter that "these monies" would be used to purchase land, (not two-thirds

I produced this document in March 2023. I am a private investor in the Eden-Redruth project. The document analyses the finances of the project and highlights Eden’s covert appropriation of a large portion of the investors’ tendered funds. Eden Land Planning Ltd. launched the project in 2018 but certain facts pertinent to this analysis did not come to light until February 2023, hence the late timing of the document.    Key Facts:  In 2018, Eden Land Planning Ltd. issued a prospectus against which they collected investment funds totalling £2,240,000. There were 22 investors.  The prospectus stated that £40,000 would be allocated for professional fees, leaving £2,200,000 for acquisition of land at Redruth, Cornwall.  The investors were thus led to believe that approximately 98% of their money would be invested in property and 2% spent on professional fees.  The investment money was paid to Eden’s lawyer, ELS Legal, who acknowledged receipt of each individual investment by letter and confi