Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’m not a scammer, that was my brother
Mother of all excuses for finance boss’s likeness to dodgy banned director
remarried. He insisted that Alpha Nova Capital was entirely unconnected to Canning and was trying to raise $500million – which sounds ambitious for a company so new it has not yet filed any accounts.
The money, he said, would not come from ordinary savers, so-called retail investors.
“It’s an institutional hedge fund, we only deal with institutions and pension funds,” he maintained.
SOPHISTICATED
“We do not deal with retail at all, we don’t touch it, weren’t not licensed to do it.”
So why was topbonds.net trying to reel-in retail investors for Alpha Nova Capital? He said this came about because he was approached by marketing company NXT Generation to discuss recruiting sophisticated investors, the minimum input being $1million.
NXT Generation subcontracted the job to another company, Lynx World of Chelmsford, Essex, which produced the misleading topbonds.net site. “I had no idea what topbonds.net was until I saw it,” Mr Beauchamp told me.
“I said I do not want anything to do with it, remove my name from it and refund my money.
“I told them ‘I cannot believe you’ve associated me with this’.”
Jonathan Pach of NXT Generation confirmed that they passed on the campaign to Lynx World, which then set up topbonds.net/anc “without approval from NXT Generation or Alpha Nova Capital”.
He added there had been only a handful of responses from the public.
Lynx World has not responded to me.
According to his Linkedin profile, Mr Beauchamp, has worked for established names in the investment world, including being a portfolio manager at Coronation Fund Managers.
But Coronation said it had never heard of him.
Mr Beauchamp insisted that he had worked there, though only as a consultant, and that his Linkedin profile wrongly stating that he had been an employee was put together by his personal assistant without him checking it.
“Who gets their PA to set up a profile and never checks it?” asked my source at Coronation.
That profile claimed Mr Beauchamp had also been an equities trader at Goldman Sachs, but they too had not heard of him.
The claim of working at the banking giant also appeared on an Alpha Nova Capital brochure, sent to a prospective investor. The brochure says he joined Goldman Sachs “as an Equity Trader managing a portfolio of over $1bn”.
I’ve also seen an email that was sent by Alpha Nova Capital to a potential investor claiming that Mr Beauchamp “has 20 years’ experience as an
equities trader at Goldman Sachs.” This email was sent to someone responding to the topbonds.net /ANC site, the one that Mr Beauchamp says he’s disowned.
Instead of telling the investor that the marketing campaign was an error and it does not deal with small investors, the email dangled the prospect of 15% returns.
It went on to explain that after “huge interest” it has “opened their door to Institutions, Family Offices, and UHNW/HNW investors.”
How many average savers would know that those initials stand for Ultra High Net Worth and High Net
Worth? That email was written by Ryan Lynn, “Head of Wealth Management & Investor Relations” at Alpha Nova Capital.
His Linkedin account states that he has also works at Colossus Financial dealing with investors.
Ryan Lynn, with the prefix “Lord”, is the director of Colossus Financial Limited.
Why, if it is actively dealing with investors, do the only accounts it has submitted to Companies House list it as dormant?
“Lord” Ryan Lynn, 29, didn’t answer, nor tell me why his Linkedin page does not mention what seems to be an unusual appointment for an investment professional.
MAGIC
He was the director of Platinum Moments Limited until it was dissolved, this company being “the go-to Premier Hire Photo Booth & Magic Mirror Company” for London and Essex.
I suggested to Mr Beauchamp that there was one sure way to prove that he and Clint Canning were different people – obtaining copies of their birth certificates.
So I asked him for their mother’s full name and maiden name.
“I simply do not know!” he replied. “Our upbringing was different than the norm, born out of wedlock in 1970s/80s Catholic Ireland.
“Are you not familiar with mother and baby homes scandal?”
Maybe, instead, he could provide some pictures of him and Clint together, or give details of his real past employers, rather than the ones on his Linkedin profile?
But he stopped replying.
I did find a Facebook page of a woman with the surname Foster – this being an alias that Clint Canning once used – that included a picture of her three grown-up children.
Mrs Foster wrote that Clint was 36 and a successful businessman, and then she mentions the two daughters.
There was no mention of a son called Christian.
This was in June 2014. If Clint, as Mr Beauchamp claims, was born in 1982, then he would have been 32 at the time, not 36.
Perhaps his mother got confused. I asked Mr Beauchamp if he can explain this but got no answer, and the Facebook pictures have been deleted.
I do hope that Companies House and the Financial Conduct Authority carried out a thorough identity check before letting him become a director of an authorised company.