Gordon Stein, CFO of CleanTech Lithium, explains why CTL acquired the 23 Laguna Verde licenses. Watch the video here.
Mark my words. MoneySuperMarket is being investigated for selling fraudulent products to the general public and admitting it. Agreeing that "no serious company would be selling these products" to which the head of compliance said "yes" and "you clearly have the evidence". How does a bucket shop FTSE 250 company have 5x the ROE of Goldman Sachs when they have no real commercial advantage? Can somebody answer me this? They can't remove them becuase in some areas it would mean that 95% of the brands would disappear as the public don't understand or know they are in fact the same company.
Ok....these are very serious and involved issues and I will need to explain properly. I will draft something today to post here later or early tomorrow. It is simply an extraordinary tale and like all the great frauds of significant note and scale it beggars belief. The FCA don't even dispute it and I will give you some of the quotes from a head of division there. Amongst other things it will almost certainly result in a massive regulatory overhaul of the comparison site market where there are similarities with the Financial Crisis. A total divorce between the seller and the end buyers experience and wellbeing. MONY were (and ARE) offering a product that the consumer thought was a separate brand but all 33 "brands" are in fact the same company with the mother company having registered 93 separate names with the FCA. MONY should stop selling it, by their own admission foolishly, but the problem is that literally 90% of their offerings disappear since all the "brands" are actually the same company. With regard to the fraud we are not talking blurred grey lines and exaggeration but full-on financial fraud. Compounded by MONY refusal to take the product down. The head of division at the FCA said "it is so extreme and so dangerous they are quite clearly rotten apples and we are obviously missing something financially behind the scenes" with reference to the product MONY sell on an industrial scale. He is not wrong and I will go into this when I put up the full horror of the thing. Just so there is no doubt. I have never purchased a product off MONY and have no equity positions, derivatives, OTC or otherwise in an comparison sites either long or short. Zero.
I very much doubt that since MONY has been reported to the FCA for selling fraudulent products in the insurance sector. However, the KEY issue is that they admitted it (their head of compliance) and then did nothing about it. The tape is with the FCA I hear. She agreed "no credible company would sell this product" stating "quite clearly you have the evidence" on the tape. The problem was that 90% of their offerings in that area were from the same fraudulent company who adopted a massive brand swamping exercise. Consumers thought they were looking at thirty brands but in effect all the same underwriter. MONY then breached FCA rules and guidance in an effort to try and avoid taking the brands down by conducting a cursaty due diligence which is at odds wiuth what is on the tape. I hear a £50 million fine given Carephonewarehouse was fined £30 million and that was for selling policies that were not needed and notjing approaching fraud as in this case. They could be banned from that sector given the new CEO of the FCA needs to stamp his mark.