Julie Meyer smears former Ariadne boss Amit Pau but I have a confidential email she sent....

Julie Meyer MBE, of the Ariadne Group, has this weekend launched the most scathing of attacks on the former MD of Ariadne Capital (now in administration) Amit Pau who quit before it went under - essentially she accuses him of dishonesty and incompetence and says the he was told his days were numbered from early 2017. But sadly for Julie Meyer the Winnileaks facility has thrown up a confidential email she sent to a prospective investor in Ariadne on 6 October 2017.

I should declare at this stage that I have known Amit Pau for years and he is one of the most honest men I have met in the business world. As such I do not believe a word Julie says in her Linkedin post below. Amit signed an NDA with Ariadne Capital when resigning and is sticking to it, refusing to comment on what happened at Ariadne which is a real pain. You may also note that while Amit was termed MD he was not in fact a director of anything. Julie Meyer  was and is the sole director of her companies signing off on all their financial statements. 

What is odd about Meyer's assertions of this weekend is that in an email to a man from whom she hoped to secure investment as part of a 7.5 million Euro funding round on 6 October she discussed Ariadne and her Entrepreneur Country unit and stated " Amit is doing a great job managing both."

So was she telling the truth about Amit on October 6th and lying this weekend or is she telling the truth now and was merely lying to investors to attract funding?

The email begs a rather bigger questiuon for Julie. In it she states:

Yes Ariadne Capital Limited (London) performed well, and this is the reason it’s Net Assets are £4 m. Up until 2016, EntrepreneurCountry was a part of ACL, but with the acquisition of Malta, and the need to keep regulated and unregulated businesses separate, we separated EC out. However, due to the years of investment that ACL has made in EC, there is a 33% of EC revenue in perpetuity stream back to ACL that ACL enjoys. So if you look at the EC and ACL combination that would be closer to the natural progression of ACL 2015 and 2016 revenue for 2017.
The €7.5 m founding shareholder round is as follows:

The £4 m or €4.8 m of founding shareholders in ACL through a Net Asset uplift or acquisition are part of the €7.5 m founding shareholder round. In addition, we have €1.5 m in the bank fully subscribed. And in the last €1.2 m to make up the €7.5 m, we have strong interest from great investors to get us across the line. That round technically closed last Friday, so I’m eager to answer any questions you have. No investor has mentioned that they are concerned about me getting to the full amount. I’m not concerned at all about this either

Ends

So Ariadne Capital was trading strongly, had huge net assets as at 6 October and anothert 1.5 million euro in the bank fully subscribed as part of that placing. Er so....

1. If Julie is telling an investor she'd banked money from the placing already why is there no record at Companies House of a share issue? Surely she would not be misleading investors?

2. If Ariadne was doing so well and had almost completed a funding on 6 October how come it went into administration on 15 December?

3. With such a strong net assets position will Julie Meyer bet me £1,000 on the matter of how the administration goes. I will wager that creditors will not get paid in full and that shareholders will not get a cent. Julie will you take a bet of £1,000 on that.

I will double up. I will also offer Julie an additional bet of £1,000. I bet that creditors get less than 10p in the pound despite those huge net assets Julie boasts of to a potential investor.

Julie will you take my bets?