Links to their websites or social media pages where they were using the “shared” copy on the date we checked — 12/10/2020:
Note that the fidelisgroup.co.uk website is different to thefidelisgroup.co.uk. The former belongs to a Fidelis Contract Services Ltd, a company regd in 2011 with £100K+ on its balance sheet. Looks like a legitimate company.
But the latter, the “investor”, belongs to Fidelis Group Ltd, a different company. It was registered in 2016. In the last accounts filed they had the grand sum of £88 on their balance sheet (no, not £88K, just £88).
Fidelis Group Ltd had or has companies like Redsky1 Ltd, Redsky2 Ltd, Redsky3 Ltd etc as corporate directors / owners of the company. Redsky1 and Redsky2 have no filed accounts. Redsky2 does show up as owning a large chunk of, for example, Tego Roofing Ltd which has now gone into liquidation. Redsky3 has one set of accounts filed where they show fixed assets of £6.5m but debts of £6.9m (and net asset value of a negative £5K).
If Fidelis made an acquisition or two, it may be recent and therefore not showing up in their last accounts.
It may be that the people behind the company are able to fund deals but the company itself doesn’t seem to have any money (based on their last balance sheet).
On their website they have one case study. It’s of an acquisition they made (or claim to have made!) — Swift Scaffold Ltd.
There is no such Swift Scaffold Ltd at Companies House!
Perhaps they meant Swift Scaffold (Midlands) Ltd. This is an important difference! And it’s important to get company names right to avoid the impression you’re trying to mislead people / point them in the wrong direction.
When we investigated this scaffold company at Companies House we do not see Fidelis Group Limited as the owner. The owners may be people who are also involved in Fidelis Group Limited but this is not made clear on the Fidelis Group Limited website. The website gives the impression that Fidelis Group Limited owns this business! They don’t.
If you do want to investigate this particular deal, the previous owner of Swift Scaffold (Midlands) Ltd is a certain John Davis. He can be found on LinkedIn and may be eager to share how the deal really went. Do give it a shot. I did, with interesting results. 🙂
This was founded only in August 2020 and doesn’t have accounts filed yet.
Another brand new company (surprise, surprise!) with no filed accounts as of Oct 2020.
This is not to be confused with the real DA Capital, a US based investment firm. This is a brand new firm in the UK with no history of filed accounts. It may be worth asking for evidence of relationship with the US based DA Capital, if there is any. Otherwise, being a new company, you’ll have to treat it as having no history of acquisitions.
Another brand new company (surprise, surprise!) with no filed accounts as of Oct 2020. They claim on their website that their deals “are almost always entirely shares paid for in cash”. They then go on to say, “We’ll pay you an agreed proportion of the sale value on the day of completion and the then the rest deferred over an agreed period”.
So a cash deal that is not cash?
If it’s a part-cash deal then it’s not really a cash deal. If we offered them £1 to buy their business, would they consider that a cash deal? Probably not.
This firm probably won’t evidence funds because, as they’ve said on their website, they use external funders and credit companies and, presumably, don’t have any cash. But there’s no harm in asking.
Their website says that they are “a privately-owned business who operate established businesses in several market sectors”. Ask them for names of these businesses and check that their company is actually the owner.
Oh, but wait, they don’t disclose their company name! But that’s not a problem. They could be investing / acquiring in their personal names. But who’s the entity making the acquisition? That’s not clear.
They claim to be an extension of The Consulting Room Group. An extension? What the heck does that even mean? Do they mean subsidiary? Oh, wait, they can’t have a subsidiary for a company that doesn’t exist! Companies House has never heard of the Consulting Room Group!
So is Professional Acquisitions a non-existent company’s that “an extension of” another non-existent company?
Genius!
But, not to worry, if you sell your business to them, their About-Us page says they’ve got a lot of skills in-house including a “web designer and copyrighter”. Yep, them got copyrighter.
Mansell Capital Ltd (no website)
A relatively new company with one year’s worth of filed accounts showing liabilities of £22K and assets of …zilch.
Black Hat Capital LLP
Companies House says it’s a new company registered in August 2020 and associated with Black Hat Holdings above. Registered at 20–22 Wenlock Road, London, England, N1 7GU.
If you get an enquiry it will likely come from an Ased Iqbal or a Luis Ghais Guarin.
This is an Australian company so we didn’t dig into its authenticity but we like the appeal to credibility by registering a domain with a “group” TLD. Yes, this company can be found at domain elcorde.group!
Hesby was incorporated in June 2019 and is registered at 20–22 Wenlock Road, just like many of the above businesses. That’s an accommodation address, and nothing wrong with that. But there are a million accommodation address companies in the UK. We find it strange that so many of the companies that feature on this page are registered at this particular one.
DGG Capital Group boldly says on its LinkedIn page that it’s looking for acquisitions up to £20m. Wow! But it’s a one man band — there is only one employee according to the LinkedIn page.
The company is a brand new company with only one set of accounts filed …and that shows the firm as dormant.
They are not at the 20–22 Wenlock Road address. Hmm. After doing a bit of checking we discovered that were indeed at that address but have recently changed! Perhaps the cost of an accommodation address — at £30 per year or whatever — was too much.
Modus Enterprises Ltd (https://www.modusenterprises.co.uk/)
Another shell company — registered in 2020 but has been filing dormant accounts. Prediction: Check their accounts a few years from now and, like all the other shell companies on this page, they’ll either still be filing dormant accounts or the company will just cease to exist.
Some of the copy that all / most of the above sites use:
We are the principals for the deals we complete, not brokers, and we have the experience and capability to assess and make an offer for your business swiftly – often within days of the first contact. For the right deals, we can complete the purchase process within weeks.
We understand that a business can be the biggest asset that people own and as such, selling your business should be treated with caution and respect. It is important to us that we treat each acquisition as unique and we make sure that we listen carefully to your wants and needs to ensure best outcomes for all involved.
