The latest set of accounts (year ended 31st March 2012) for Partnerships for Renewables makes interesting reading. They show a loss of £7,329,658 for 2012 and a loss of £6,661,809 for 2011 because in neither year was there any turnover. It seems safe to assume that PfR would not be happy with these kind of losses if they were not expecting to make large profits further down the line.
However a significant part of PfR’s expenditure goes on Staff costs and Directors’ remuneration:
The report states that “The average monthly number of employees for the year ended 31 March 2012 (including Executive Directors) was 31″ and the cost of wages and salaries, social security costs and pension costs was £2,384, 695. The staff costs included £171,096 in respect of the highest paid Director.
These hefty sums can be usefully compared to the amounts being offered to communities through the Community Benefit fund:approximately £12,500 pa for Thorington Barn according to PfR’s own website
http://www.pfr.co.uk/thoringtonbarn/3272/About-the-Project/3281/Benefits/
The Government is providing huge subsidies for wind farm development and it is therefore the general public who will be forking out ever-increasing amounts of money for energy bills that are far higher than they need to be because of the obsession with green ideals and carbon emissions; but surely somebody at ministerial level should be questioning the additional burden of large salaries, particularly when the “benefits” for communities are so pathetically small.
Filed under: General Tagged: | community benefit funds, PfR, Stop Ipswich Turbines, Wind Turbines
Reblogged this on A Riverside View and commented:
I take it the a loss of £7,329,658 is after the huge government subsidy.
No. They have absolutely zero turnover in the period as they have absolutely no wind turbines working. The £7.3m loss is split between development expenditure (£3m) and administration (£4m). There is no income. Yet.
Their accounts also state that they’ve run up acculumated losses of over £25m since they were set up. All of this (and more) has been funded by their shareholders.
For reference, their shareholders are the Carbon Trust, a Canadian Pension Fund and an outfit called Infrared Investment Partners LLP. This last bunch are as close to venture capitalists as you can get – unfortunately being an LLP means they don’t have to publish accounts at companies house. One of the partners is a director of PFR though.
Now, whatever you may think about venture capitalists, they don’t get rich by being stupid. They will be expecting a hefty return on their investment somewhere down the line.
Just to make everyone feel even better though is the fact that the venture capitalist’s returns will be almost exclusively funded from the additional levy on your power bill.
Interestingly also is the fact that with total employee costs of approx £2m a year and an average number of employees of 31 (all from statutory accounts in public domain), PFR have an _average_ salary of over £60k. Unsurprisingly, their HPD (highes paid director) earns more than the prime minister.
PFR also have an extremely complex set of tax arrangements for their employees using a scheme that allows them to avoid (some might say evade…) paying tax & NI on certain parts of their remuneration.
I wonder whether the current Labour led council would care to comment on whether they are still so happy getting into bed with such a company – they are hardly the green & fluffy bunch that their promo literature implies.
When I get around to it, I’ll publish a list of the directors (it’s all in the public domain – you just need to know where to look).
The below information is very long-winded (pun intended). Wade through it though, there are some extremely interesting tidbits.
All of the below information is available in the public domain from Companies House. Address information can be obtained in some cases from the Electoral Roll, for a small fee, but again, in the public domain.
PFR have 30+ limited companies set up in the UK. One for each of the sites they are developing. For instance there is PFR (Thorington Barn) Limited set up with company number 07458625. This company is not yet trading (or at least has not had to file accounts at Companies House).
The current directors of PFR (Thorington Barn) Limited are:-
Mr Stephen David Ainger (61 years old) – Chief Executive Officer
Mr Andrew Kenneth Macdonald (47 years old) – Commercial Director
All of these subsidiary companies are owned by “Partnerships for Renewables Construction Holdco Ltd” (number 06526835).
The current directors of this holding company are:-
Mr Stephen David Ainger (61 years old) – Chief Executive
Mr James Edward Hall-Smith (43 years old) – Director
Miss Claire Anne Williams – Company Secretary
Mr Stanislav Michael Kolenc (36 years old, Canadian national) – Investor
Mrs Gina Verissimo Hall (51 years old, American national) – Director
This holding company is in turn owned by “Partnerships for Renewables Ltd” (number 05772184).
The shareholders of the top level company are:-
42.97% Carbon Trust Enterprises Ltd
40.68% HSBC Environmental Infrastructure Fund GP Ltd
16.35% Optrust Infrastructure Europe II Inc
The directors of the top level company are:-
Mr Thomas Auguste Read Delay (53 years old) – Chief Executive
Mr Alan Geoffrey Moore (63 years old) – Consultant
Mr Stephen David Ainger (61 years old) – Chief Executive
Mr James Edward Hall-Smith (43 years old) – Director
Miss Claire Anne Williams – Company Secretary
Mr Mark Christopher Wayment (54 years old) – Asset Manager
Mr John Matthew Walsh (44 years old, Canadian national) – Lawyer
Mr Stanislav Michael Kolenc (36 years old, Canadian national) – Director
Mrs Gina Verissimo Hall (51 years old, American national) – Director
The top level company has another subsidiary, a “sister” to the construction company called “Partnerships for Renewables Development Company Limited” (number 06526742). This company has the same directors and is a wholly owned subsidiary.
PFR’s details are:-
Registered Office
4th Floor, Dorset House
27-45 Stamford Street
London
SE1 9NT
Auditors
Kingston Smith LLP (Top 20 accountancy firm)
Bankers
The Royal Bank of Scotland (wholly owned subsidiary of the British Public)
Solicitors
Wragge & Co LLP (serious, proper, expensive lawyers)
PFR’S principal activity as stated in their accounts is “a renewable energy developer working with public sector bodies (PSBs) to develop, construct and operate renewable energy projects in the UK. The initial intention of PfR is to develop a 500MW portfolio of renewables projects on public sector land with a focus on on-shore wind”.
Slightly concerning that the word “initial” is in that statement. A hint at future activity maybe?
PFR lost £7.3m in 2012 and lost £6.7m in 2011. Unsurprisingly they are not going to pay any dividends as all of their cash is tied up in development at present.
There’s an interesting note in the statutory accounts. PFR have granted an indemnity to its Directors against liability in respect of proceedings brought by third parties. I’ve never seen that clause in a set of statutory accounts – why on earth would a company need to grant indemnity if everything was above board and never going to result in an action?
Normal companies, if they were to make losses such as these, would be asked by their auditors whether they were able to continue in business. This test is known as “Going Concern” and basically says whether the auditors expect the company to exist in the future. This question has (rightly) been asked by the auditors and one of the notes in the accounts states that “Due to the early stage of the Group’s activities it is reliant on funding from its Shareholders to continue in business. The Shareholders have committed, under the terms of the joint venture agreement signed on 19 November 2010, to provide additional funding that is sufficient to enable the Group to continue in business for a period of not less than 12 months from the date of the approval of the financial statements”.
Couple of things to realise here – the investors are willing to fund the losses for another year. The other interesting thing to note is the date of the agreement. Do we know when IBC signed the contract with PFR? If it was before that date I would strongly question whether IBC had done any / enough / adequate due diligence on their new friends. Perhaps this is a question an Ipswich resident could raise at a Council meeting (as I am disenfranchised by IBC but affected by these windmills)
PFR are paying interest on debt (money lent to them by their shareholders). Eventually this debt gets converted to equity (shares) and instead of PFR paying interest, the investor will expect a return (dividend) on the shares they own.
Remember, any losses (subject to some restriction) can be carried forward as a tax loss which can be set against taxable profits in the future. Don’t expect PFR to be paying any Corporation Tax into the UK coffers anytime soon. Perhaps we could ask our esteemed IBC what they think of that?
PFR have (virtually) no assets at all (they have a little bit of furniture & fixtures), but they do have £3.8m in the bank to fund their activities over the next year. All of this has been lent by shareholders.
The TOTAL loss incurred by PFR up to 31st March 2012 is, wait for it, £26.5m. You might reasonably expect them to lose another £7m in 2013 making accumulated losses well in excess of £30m by March 2013.
Wages were £2.1m in 2012 with a further £0.2m of social security costs (probably Employers’ National Insurance). Average employees was 31 for the year making an average wage of £66,500 per annum. No wonder some of the people presenting on behalf of PFR are able to sleep – their matresses are stuffed with cash.
Highest paid director earned £171,096 in 2012 – considerably more than the prime minister.
PFR paid £140k in what they called “Commitment fees”. I suspect that this relates to fees payable to funds providers in respect of amounts undrawn on agreed facilities. Typically this would be 1% of undrawn amounts and could imply that PFR have a credit line available for an additional £14m of loans.
Included in their £3.8m of cash balance is a loan from the Carbon Trust of £1.5m which has been earmarked for “Turbine Deposit Funding”. The Carbon Trust have a charge over this cash, ie, PFR are not allowed to spend it on anything else.
PFR have an extremely interesting tax avoidance scheme called “Enterprise Management Incentive Scheme”. These schemes are recognised by HMRC but there is an extremely complex set of arrangements to allow employees to avoid tax & NI. The HMRC website says that these schemes are ok as long as they are not for certain prescribed activities. Among those activities is “Property Development”. I for one will be dropping HMRC a line via the whistleblowing link to ask them to take a closer look at this arrangement.
The HSBC shareholder is called something different in the statutory accounts – “InfraRed Environmental Infrastructure GP Limited”. Here is their website http://ircp.com/
This bunch put up wind turbines, including one at Maesgwyn Wind Farm. Here is a link to a serious accident that happened at Maesgwyn – very strange that PFR haven’t mentioned this.
http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/11084
Infrared are owned by Infrared Capital Partners Ltd. One of their directors is Mr James Edward Hall-Smith (remember him from the PFR board above).
ICP are a good old fashioned venture capitalist that grew out of Charterhouse Bank. Their founder is even stereotypically a Swiss Banker. I bet IBC don’t make a comment about getting into bed with such a bunch of capitalists!
On a final note, I have received correspondence from PFR stating that they won’t put a blimp up so we can see how big these turbines will be. Laughably they claim their very artful photomontages do the job better. I quote “With regards to your suggestion of flying a blimp at the maximum proposed turbine tip-height, whilst we do take this suggestion on board, we have a duty to accurately represent our proposal”.
That, in my not very humble opinion, is utter drivel. And as for their claim that they take the suggestion on board, my feelings are unprintable.
Thanks for that information No Turbines In Belstead. Very enlightening
We in Belstead made enquiries at Companies House re PfR and obtained the financial and personnel information but thanks for the more comprehensive details. Belstead, Pinewood and Wherstead parishes are small and we need all the help we can get. Fortunately in the Action Group ‘Stop Ipswich Turbines’ we have a cross border organisaton who can represent all the residents of south west Ipswich who seem to have been disenfrachised by IBC. The rural parishes affected are working closely with SITwith many of their residents members. We need a level playing field in finance and planning rules to ensure that we prevail but we will have to make do with what we have got which is the near total support of everyone affected by this developent. Thank you again for shedding a little more light on the developers.
David Cobbold