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Published 1753 days ago
I am gravely concerned about the soft loan given to Versarien (VRS) by Innovate UK. It seems to me that rules have been broken and taxpayers cash should not be used in this way. I have, therefore, written to my local MP here in Wrexham, Ms Sarah Atherton, asking her to raise this with the minister responsible, Alok Sharma as soon as possible. I urge you to copy this letter below, adapt it for your local use, and contact your MP too urging him or her to act on this matter at once.
Published 1726 days ago
Yesterday I published a letter from Amanda Solloway MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State – Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, to fellow Tory MP Bim Afolami in which she explained why Versarien (VRS) should receive a £5 million loan from taxpayer-funded Innovate UK, its largest ever such loan. Either this is Tory sleaze, Versarien boss Neill Ricketts boasts of his visits to No 10, or Ms Solloway has been badly misled. As such, I have written to her to alert her to that possibility. The letter is below:
Published 1696 days ago
As things stand, Versarien (VRS) has drawn down the first 40% of a £5 million low interest loan from taxpayer-funded Innovate UK despite demonstrably being ineligible for what is the body’s biggest ever loan - indeed admitting in its own annual report that it breaches the eligibility criteria. That is a scandal. But I can now show why this scandal is far worse and suggests that Innovate UK hands out cash to favoured companies on an utterly indiscriminate and un-monitored manner which no assessment of whether its funding delivers any return or benefits for taxpayers. What follows is shocking. A co-conspirator has raised the issue of the illegitimate loan with Innovate UK and has this response from a Matthew Oswin:
Published 1656 days ago
Readers may recall reading the following paragraph from a letter of 27th July by junior minister Amanda Solloway to fellow MP Bim Afolami, seeking to justify the £5 million loan made by Innovate UK to Versarien (VRS):
Published 789 days ago
In today’s, utterly dreadful, results from Versarien (VRS) the auditors make it clear that the company will go bust if it cannot get a material cash injection from grants, loans or share issues. There is something Versarien is not telling investors about that. I wonder if it has told auditors BDO or its hapless Nomad SP Angel.Published 1681 days ago
We have already exposed the cavalier way Innovate UK has spunked taxpayer cash on Versarien (VRS) with zero accountability. Next in line seems to be Verditek (VDTK). Now I turn to Haydale Graphene (HAYD).
Published 1677 days ago
You think of innovation and naturally one’s mind turns to disrupting the world of bread rolls. Of course. In this latest insight into how your hard earned cash is spunked by Innovate UK, it is time to head to Bolton and to bread maker Warburtons.
Published 1753 days ago
I pointed out yesterday that £5 million of your cash as a taxpayer is going to the serial liars at Versarien (VRS) via Innovate UK when Versarien quite clearly does not qualify for such funding. I have asked Innovate boss Nigel Walker to explain this but he has declined to comment. However, as his tweets below show, Nigel has been very close to Versarien and its corpulent boss Neill Ricketts for three years.
Published 51 days ago
In yesterday’s announcement Versarien (VRS) indicated that 50% of the interest payments of 7.4% which were due to become payable in February 2025 on the Innovate Loan of £5 million would now become payable commencing August 2026.Published 1713 days ago
It appears that a second charge has been registered at Companes House by taxpayer-backed Innovate UK for its £5 million loan to Versarien (VRS). This means that if Versarien defaults, taxpayers may well not get all their cash back. That on its own seems a clear breach of Innovate UK rules and a reason why this loan should not be made. But there is worse. In its quite atrocious results today, Versarien itself gives a reason for why the loan application is illegal. Lucian Miers has written to Business Secretary Alok Sharma to flag this up.
Published 1731 days ago
A number of MPs have now been contacted by constituents about the £5 million loan from taxpayer-backed Innovate UK to Versarien (VRS) which appears to breach a fact of Innovate UK’s own rules. It seems that now, even chancellor Rishi Sunak is looking into the matter as the letter below demonstrates.
Published 1547 days ago
It helps when shorting a company’s shares to have a tailwind and there are few more favourable tailwinds than if that company is resorting to death spiral finance. This desperate measure tells you that all normal financing options are closed to it and that realising cash at punitive and dilutive rates is the only way to survive. The reality of death spiral financing is so grim that it is little wonder that many companies attempt to obfuscate it by hoodwinking investors into thinking that the finance provider is an institution willing to invest in their shares…
Published 52 days ago
Innovate UK, the incompetent poltroons funded by you and I the taxpayer, has today let Versarien (VRS) kick the can down the road yet again. This time it has deferred the capital repayments on its £5 million Innovate loan by a year to August 2026 when Versarien has to pay £500,000 a quarter for the next 10 quarters. It has also permitted Versarien to defer paying the 50% deferred interest from February 2026 until the same date.Published 1680 days ago
The criminal way that taxpayer cash is handed out by Innovate UK to companies that are either undeserving or can raise cash from share issuances in the private sector will, in the end, turn out to be a scandal running into the hundreds of millions of pounds. Yesterday I exposed the £4.6 million, wholly unjustified, spunk on Haydale Graphene and today I flag up £117,377 dished out to a total fraud, Environmental Recycling Technologies then listed on AIM.
Published 129 days ago
Versarien (VRS) gave a presentation for financial masochists and the genetically gullible yesterday. There wasn’t a lot of new financial information because Chris Leigh the CFO stated that the audit for the year to 30 September 2024 was still in progress. The key snippets provided were as follows:Published 867 days ago
Make no mistake, today’s news from Versarien (VRS) is a £5 million dollop of sleaze from the Tories. It also suggests that the bailout discounted placing is coming soon. To what seems wholly corrupt, first.Published 1679 days ago
One of the striking things about how taxpayer cash is doled out via Innovate UK is how many of the Marxist Madrassas we used to call Universities are on the gravy train. Among those really tucking in is the University of West of England, UWE, the place where hard line socialists wanting to live in Bristol but too dim to get a job at Bristol University end up working. So here is where £83,341 of your cash went.
Published 318 days ago
There were some positives in the Versarien (VRS) interims this morning which were welcomed by the LSE Bulletin Board Morons who have pushed the shares up in response to the news. The loss before tax in the six months to March 31 reduced from £3.4 million to £1.64 million and the cash burn was down from £1.974 million to a mere £790,000. However…Published 1354 days ago
It is hard to know where to begin with the results from Versarien (VRS) for the year to March 31 2021. They are, at every level, just utterly diabolical. However much the morally bankrupt PR spinners at Yellow Jersey – who else would act for such scoundrels – try to polish the turd, it is still a turd.
Published 439 days ago
Yesterday shares in Reneuron (RENE) were suspended pending clarification. We did warn folks but sadly shareholders who ignored us will almost certainly lose everything. But that is their call. The real scandal is that we all, as taxpayers, have taken a £15m hit.
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