| How £40million was stolen from Rosser Group | Rosser Group Property | Who are the Guilty Parties? | Solicitors under the Microscope | Oxford Citys FC's £1m Betrayal |
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Who are the
Guilty Parties?
Look at the actions of those who oversaw the collapse of a hugely profitable and asset-rich set of companies...
Kennet / Laytons
Richard Kennett – managing partner of Laytons Tony Rosser’s sole solicitor and the Rosser Group’s solicitor for 15 years – had promised to work even handedly in dealings between them and Tony’s brother Colin [a minor owner of shares in the Rosser Group], yet for a year secretly worked with Colin on demerger documents to allow Goodhead Print to break away from the group.
Then Goodhead Print who Colin managed was proposed by solicitor Kennett / Colin to become fully owned by Colin separately from the group to start another free newspaper group and to take it to the AIM market — despite owning no free newspapers at that time and making 65% of its revenues from printing Freenewspapers Ltd's highly profitable titles.
The documents separating Colin from the group were signed after much requesting by Kennett and Colin with the proviso that major changes were effected re the document which was eventually signed. None of the agreed changes were made by Kennett, the the Rosser Group’s only solicitor, who appears to have been solely operating for Colin.
Vital corrections to proposed demerger documents despite repeated requests from Tony to do so were not carried out by Kennett promises made by them both but no changes. For Kennett to work evenly with both parties was impossible but Kennett insisted he could but obviously now looking back it is clear Kennett also had ulterior motives.
The matters became worse when Kennett put a £750K “cosmetic” asset re Sunday Journal Ltd a company closed down several years earlier - without authority - to Colin's credit. This £750,000 was never to be used in any event between the parties as this was part of the demerger agreement, yet they would breach this promise.
Kennett set up the “Aldoworld debenture” on Tony’s Techomes Ltd company which Kennett used to add a small part of [modest development in centre of Bristol of 6 shops and 14 flats] Techomes Ltd substantial land and construction property bank to aid Colin’s launch on AIM. This Aldoworld debenture move later revealed that a receivership by Citibank on the newspaper group would enable Citibank to get the £5.9 million which was rightfully owed to Citibank repaid but also take £25 million of property and ripe building land in addition. This move to assist my own brother with his launch had surupticiously put Techomes Ltd’s £25 million plus property and land bank in jeopardy, unnecessarily and extravagantly surrendering power and control to Colin and Kennett by betraying the interests of Kennett's main clients, AR and Rosser Group.
In another matter prior to the Goodhead demerger and typical of what was to follow, Kennett, in handling the sale of the Bristol Journal for £1.8 million, wrote Colin's printing interests into the sale when it had nothing to do with Colin. Kennett handed the printing business to Coilin as part of the deal, costing AR £300K off the agreed deal.
Kennet oversaw all of Rosser Group's eggs being put into the Citibank basket: so Rosser Group agreed to use no banking facilities but Citibank's, while at the same time giving Citibank the incredible right to call in all their debts on the day with no notice whatsover.
Kennett's/Laytons' advice affectively led Rosser Group into a trap, which would be sprung by Citibank calling in their loan on the basis of false accounts provided by receivership specialists that Citibank had smuggled in under the pretence of providing Rosser Group with high-level accountancy advice. Citibank had also insisted that the Group sack its own chief accountant, effectively leaving it blind of honest, impartial accounting advice at a senior level. Hours after receivership papers were signed, the real (long overdue) accounts showing a far stronger position mysteriously appeared. Also later that day, a Citibank VP (Ellison, below) rejected an offer for many newspaper assets that would have comfortably paid off all Group debts.
Nevertheless, Kennett still insisted that receivership was the best and only way of realizing Rosser Group / Techomes Ltd large land and property assets when the Aldoworld debenture passed all assets over to Citibank. Thus preventing monies being available for Rosser Group to fight against these incredible operators stealing their companies.
Key Other Parties
While the whole affair was orchestrated by Laytons, it was only made possible by the negligence or outright corruption of several other parties:
Citibank
agreed to offer professional accountancy support – and billed the group accordingly. However, under the guise of this support agreement they surreptitiously sent in receivership specialists instead. They also removed our own trusted chief accountant, leaving the business entirely dependent on their own hidden-agenda “accountants”.Peat Marwick
(subsumed into KPMG a few weeks after receivership) collaborated with Citibank to deploy this hidden receivership expertise to justify winding up the group on the basis of falsified results. They actively hid the fact that we were cash rich and highly profitable by withholding long-overdue accounts going back some way which showed strong results by the Freenewspapers Ltd business, until hours after the receivership had been called when they produced the actual figures. This whole matter engineered by Kennett, Colin , Ellison , Peat Marwick and Rodgers our auditor. The whole lot should have been brought up before a judge on serious charges.Citibank Vice President Ellison
oversaw these account delays in his determination to present the business in an unfair light and justify receivership. This was after he had got nowhere constantly pursuing his private interests instead of his official duties, such as his desire for the group to launch a magazine for him. On the day of receivership he rejected a firm offer (from a previous buyer) for the bulk of the newspaper business alone – which would have left us sitting on £1.6m cash after paying off Citibank in full – for being “2 minutes” too late. A very grim situation.Rodgers
the group accountant used his inside knowledge to acquire Oxford City at a bargain price of £29,000 for a club whose lease on its valuable grounds had a value of around £1+million. The management had promised to reinvest that £1million in the club itself. But by breaching the lease terms and losing a subsequent (and apparently sham details elsewhere) court case, Rodgers was able to realize the value of this lease, which he had transferred into his own companies, for himself – leaving City bereft while giving the appearance that he had fought for their survival.Colin Rosser
secretly worked with Kennet for a year on the Group demerger before ambushing managing director AR with the resultant documents, when all parties had a duty of fidelity to each other.When seeking a listing there, the AIM market was misled about the newspapers “owned” by Goodhead Communications in a long-term campaign undertaken with Colin’s knowledge and in his name. While the national newspapers called him the “free newspaper king”, he actually owned no free newspapers at all, and was even losing the valuable (over-priced) printing rights to the ones he did produce under contract for Freenewspapers Ltd. These lies were highly material; and as any investors acting relying on his prospectus would have lost money to what was surely a blatant fraud.
Triggering the Rosser Group’s receivership with the Aldoworld debenture could only be done in Colin’s name: and this action took the wind out of the Group’s sails at the very moment it needed to be fighting back hardest. As a director of the Rosser Group, he had a duty not to endanger it by taking actions which he knew to be unnecessary to protect his other interests.
To prevent group chairman AR from being able to fund the legal actions required to unravel and correct all of these frauds, he also instigated personal bankruptcy proceedings against him all the while knowing that they were unjustified and improper.
Full details of everything that transpired are available in these websites:
| How £40million was stolen from Rosser Group | Rosser Group Property | Who are the Guilty Parties? | Solicitors under the Microscope | Oxford Citys FC's £1m Betrayal |
|---|