HSBC chair poured cash into failed tax avoidance investment scheme
The new chair of HSBC lost money in a tax-avoiding investment scheme that ultimately collapsed, City PM can reveal.
Brendon Nelson became a partner and investor in a biofuel exploration business called Future Fuels, itself part of a wider scheme called Elysian Fuels which was operated by Future Capital Partners.
The unregulated investment scheme was marketed to retail investors via wealth managers and suggested they could “expect a x5 return on their initial capital contribution” with minimal tax liabilities through the use of capital allowances.
The scheme attracted hundreds of investors and raised tens of millions of pounds, with individual investors contributing upwards of £100,000 each.
But Future Fuels was ultimately wound down in 2017 after a biofuel venture it had invested into failed, causing the value of its assets to be written down to zero, company filings show.
Liquidated
Future Capital Partners has also since been liquidated after another one of its tax avoidance schemes, called Eclipse, was found by HMRC not to deliver the tax reliefs it promised.
Former exchequer secretary David Gauke said of the Eclipse tax scheme at the time: “We will not stand for abuse of those reliefs and HMRC will come down hard on anyone who tries. In this case, anyone who used the scheme to try to avoid tax will have to pay tax on the income from the scheme, meaning they are worse off than if they’d never used it.”
HMRC investigated Elysian over its tax avoidance strategy, alongside challenging individual Future Fuels investors over the tax treatment of their investments. The failed scheme attracted several complaints to the financial ombudsmen after investments were wiped out. Some wealth managers who promoted the scheme were later banned from carrying out regulated activities by the Financial Conduct Authority.
HSBC said in a statement: “Mr Nelson invested in Future Fuels when it was seen as a legitimate investment. When the commercial rationale was challenged by Inland Revenue, Mr Nelson repaid the tax benefit received and resigned from the partnership.”
Nelson, a former KMPG partner, became the new permanent chair of HSBC earlier this month, but is widely viewed in the City as a caretaker chairman who will not see out his full nine-year term due to his age.