Simon Caukwell

Simon Allerton Cawkwell was born on 11thOctober 1946. He resides at Flat 3, 59 Drayton Gardens, London SW10 9RU, with his wife Anne J Cawkwell (DOB 16thFebruary 1947) and one daughter. Their other daughter, Lucy, does not live at home.

The Drayton Gardens property is not owned by  Simon Cawkwell but is under lease and enquiries have established no connection between Simon Cawkwell and the leaseholder. The Cawkwells have lived there for at least 15 years. No other properties have been identified as being owned by Cawkwell.

Cawkwell has been a member of the Travellers Club, in Pall Mall for over twenty years. He attends there frequently over short periods punctuated by long absences.

Anne is currently a director of Isola Productions Ltd, a motion media productions company which has been dormant since October 2013, and is Company Secretary of Osbourne Cawkwell Ltd, a private tutors company in London, of which Lucy Cawkwell is a director.

Simon Cawkwell went to Rugby School and then to Coopers & Lybrand as an articled clerk, qualifying as an accountant of the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England & Wales (“ICAEW”) in 1969. He went on to work in Zambia as a mines cash flow and taxation forecast accountant, returning to London in 1973. In published articles, he says he became interested in buying and selling shares at the age of 14 and first sold short in 1973, in MFI, and has been doing it, on and off, ever since.

In 1985, he set up his own accountancy firm, Cawkwells, in Jermyn Street, Mayfair. Since the 1990s, Cawkwell has been either Director or Company Secretary of eleven companies, eight of which are now dissolved. Of those which are still active, Simon Cawkwell remains a director of only one, Greasermeter Ltd.

In 1978, together with two former executives of Oyez Services, he founded Company Communications Centre (“CCC”), a rival business education company. Oyez sued, Cawkwell resigned and CCC later went into liquidation.

In 1987, Simon Cawkwell took over as Chairman of Winebank, a troubled wine trader, with a remit to turn the business back to profit; however, he was unable to save it from going under. Also, he was on the board of Virgin Atlantic Airways for a short period from when it started up.

From 1990 to the early 2000s, Cawkwell was disciplined several times by the ICAEW for a wide range of breaches including:

• ·         1990 – failed to pay £9,000 in respect of two lost wagers. Both complaints were found proven and Cawkwell was admonished and ordered to pay costs of £500
• ·         1998 – arranged investments for a client when he was not authorised to do so under the Financial Services Act  1986
• ·         1998 / 1999 – carried on the managing of investments for a client when he was not authorised to do so under the Financial Services Act 1986
• ·         1995 / 1999 – gave investment advice which he was not authorised to provide under the Financial Services Act 1986.

As a consequence of his ICAEW breaches, Cawkwell was ultimately excluded from membership of the ICAEW with a recommendation that no application for re-admission be considered for at least 5 years. He was also fined £10,000, and ordered to pay costs of £19,146.14. (See documents relating to his ICAEW disciplinary record at Appendices 1 and 2).

At the time of writing, Cawkwell has not been readmitted to ICAEW and is not therefore permitted to practice.

Cawkwell has a widely publicized gambling habit which has led to several gambling disputes, including his spat with Betfair in regards to his lost bet against Niall Quinn becoming Sunderland Football Club manager.

Cawkwell is the only director and 100% shareholder of Greasermeter Limited, which was incorporated on 26/03/2013 and is registered at 12 Ritchie Court, 380 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7PW. The company’s business is described as “other information technology service activities”. At this stage it has yet to submit its first set of accounts.

Cawkwell’s previous directorships include:

• ·         Custom Products Limited (active)
• ·         In Case Solutions Limited (active)
• ·         Kryso Resources Limited (active)
• ·         Merchant & City Investments Limited (dissolved)
• ·         Heywood Environmental Group PLC (dissolved)
• ·         Fisher Harrison Limited (dissolved)
• ·         Cultured Commerce Limited (dissolved)
• ·         Strategic Settlements & Securities Limited (dissolved)
• ·         MediEquus PLC (dissolved)
• ·         Jermyn Registrars Limited (dissolved)
• ·         Also registered at the address at 12 Ritchie Court are the following companies:
• ·         ExtracareInternationalUKLtd
• ·         RitchieCourt
• ·         AirCharterAviationLtd
• ·         AirCharterLtd
• ·         AirCharterTravelLtd
• ·         AircharterUKLtd
• ·         AirChateauTravelLtd
• ·         CorporateAirCharterLtd
• ·         HelenairLtd

Nigel Guy De Laval Harvie, who is a solicitor based in Oxfordshire, is a director of each of these companies. The address at 12 Ritchie Court, 380 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 7PW is a retirement flat and Harvie has been registered as the leasehold owner since 2011. The nature of the link between Harvie and Cawkwell is not clear at this stage.

Searches of legal databases have revealed that Cawkwell was mentioned in a Civil Court hearing on 25thApril 2008, Nigel Smith v ADFVN PLC & Others. The claim arose out of allegedly defamatory statements made about Nigel Smith on a bulletin board, ADFVN, by a list of individuals including Simon Cawkwell. The particular case with Cawkwell was issued but not served, and then withdrawn.

In a search of Lawtel, (a UK Courts database), there is reference to Cawkwell in a Court action at the Queen’s Bench Division (case reference HQ11X04284) against a Garry Morrill in 2011. This related to a bet dispute, which Cawkwell ultimately won.

Myriad reports involving Cawkwell describe him as the “king of the bear traders” and describe his attacks on companies on which he is short and his associations with Winnifrith, Miers and other individuals, as well as Gotham City and Ennismore Fund Fanagement.

Cawkwell’s book, Evil’s Good: Book of Boasts and Other Investments, was first published in 2002. A later version, (edited by Tom Winnifrith, published by ADVFN) was published in 2012. The book claims to have the lowdown on taking short positions in trading.