The Isle of Man Financial Services Authority (IoMFSA) has warned the public about a company called Blackmore Global PCC Limited, which it believes has been operating as a collective investment scheme without proper authorisation.
Blackmore is an Isle of Man company which was incorporated in September 2013 as a protected cell company (PCC).
The firm is not known to have any connection to UK-based mini-bond firm Blackmore, which went into administration in April 2020.
Seeking pension funds
In a statement published on 29 April, the IoMFSA said that Blackmore had issued an offering memorandum and a supplementary offering memorandum for each of its cells.
This indicated, the watchdog said, that Blackmore was seeking investments of pensions savings, and that the investment horizon was 10 years.
The memorandum acknowledged that Blackmore was not regulated and is not covered by any statutory compensation scheme.
The firm was established as a closed-ended investment company.
But, based on the information available to the IoMFSA, the watchdog considers, “to the best of its knowledge and belief, and in its opinion, that Blackmore has been operating as an open-ended investment company and therefore a collective investment scheme without having been established as such, as required under the Collective Investment Schemes Act 2008”.
Next steps
The IoMFSA is now “considering appropriate next steps in respect of Blackmore appearing to have operated as a collective investment scheme despite not being established as such”.
What is a PCC?
According to the IoMFSA definition, a protected cell company “can be thought of as being a standard limited company that has been separated into legally distinct portions or cells”.
“The revenue streams, assets and liabilities of each cell are kept separate from all other cells. Each cell has its own separate portion of the PCC’s overall share capital, allowing shareholders to maintain sole ownership of an entire cell while owning only a small proportion of the PCC as a whole.”
