CLANDEBOYE AGENCIES

Clandeboye Agencies are a confectionary wholesaler from Antrim, they were awarded DHSC contracts worth £107.5 million. I have followed this company for the last 3+ years, to try & uncover their profits.

Clandeboye were awarded two contracts for gowns by the DHSC. I also believe they supplied NHS Wales. Their DHSC contracts have been well documented. Good Law Project, Panorama & other covering the award of these contracts. I wanted to investigate the profits that were made by the Walker family who own Clandeboye Agencies.

As part of any investigation facts need cross referencing & in this case the contracts are both visible on UK contracts finder. DHSC spend though only shows spend of £69.3 million. Not £107.5 million. So £38.2 million difference!

Further investigation shows that in April 2023, almost 3 years after most contracts were awarded, the DHSC completed a major update of the published DHSC spend records. We can now see that Clandeboye Agencies were paid £107.52 million by the DHSC, a match to the contracts awarded.

The next step is to examine Clandeboye Agencies accounts. This is a bit of a web. So I will try & simplify it as much as possible!

The reporting of Clandeboye Agencies accounts was extended until 31st January 2021 and there is little evidence of the PPE contracts for a company who had supplied over a £100 million in PPE. Shareholder funds had increased by approximately £1.3 million but they also owed another company (Alpinebeat Unlimited) with the same directors £675k.

In June 2020 just after they won the contracts, the directors formed a holding company called Clady Holdings Ltd. The first Clady Holdings company accounts show in July 2021 that they owed another company owned by the same directors a total of £6.27 million. Clady Holdings Ltd shareholder funds showed just 22k.

So this other company (not named) had lent Clady Holdings £6.27 million and had the same Walker family directors as Clady Holdings. I have checked all the companies owned by the Walker family & surmise it could only be Alpinebeat Unlimited, an unlimited company incorporated in September 2020 & the same Alpinebeat Unlimited that had also lent £675k to Clandeboye Agencies.

As this is an unlimited company they don't need to file accounts. But it would suggest they had creditors in Clandeboye Agencies & Clady Holdings of £6.9 million. The strangely Clandeboye Agencies & Clady Holdings make no mention of the loans on their next accounts!

This would suggest that the £6.9 million had been paid back to Alpinebeat Unlimited during 2021.

The directors have also incorporated two new companies Clady Group & Dunsilly Holdings. The capital invested in these companies £2.8 million. Finally they also incorporated & closed a company called Transport & Logistics Limited incorporated in December 2020 & wound down in January 2022.

All the companies accounts were completed by the Plymouth Brethren owned UBT Accountants.

This complex web leads to potentially three companies (Alpinebeat Unlimited, Clady Group & Dunsilly Holding) that all didn't exist pre Covid, having a worth of up to £9.7 million. I hope you found it interesting to see how a contract winner can create new companies & move the money around.