Second 'revolutionary' farm business suffers financial meltdown

EXCLUSIVE by EWAN LAMB

A Borders-based agri-business with 650 shareholders which attracted national media coverage for its 'groundbreaking' plans for crop growing and green fuel production has had liquidators appointed by the UK Government.

The insolvency of Omega Infinite PLC (formerly Avocet Infinite) follows hard on the heels of the financial crash experienced by a sister company, Orrdone Farms Ltd. where administrators are investigating the company's affairs. It has been estimated Orrdone Farms has debts of some £3.8 million.

As Not Just Sheep & Rugby reported exclusively in March the joint administrators who have taken over control of Orrdone Farms plan to sell off two Berwickshire farms which were earmarked as the locations for a 'fascinating' model "using disruptive technology to change the face of modern farming".

An official notice published today (Friday) confirms that Ashleigh Fletcher and Joanne Hammond, of insolvency practitioners Begbies Traynor, based in Sheffield, were appointed joint liquidators of Omega Infinite on April 28th. The notice adds that the appointment was made by 'the Secretary of State'.

Omega Infinite has featured on a number of occasions in articles published online by Parliamentary Review.The publication reported in one extremely upbeat article how Avocet, as it then was, had grown its share capital from £50,000 to £17 million in £1 shares in the space of four years.

As we reported in March, the "new and innovative techniques" being pioneered by Omega (Avocet)'s directors Martin Frost and Bob Jennings...both are also directors of Orrdone Farms ...were highly praised as recently as 2018 by Councillor Mark Rowley, Scottish Borders Council's executive member for business and economic development. Mr Rowley told The Berwickshire News after a site visit in October of that year: "The model is fascinating, I hope it will bring significant investment and employment to the Borders."

The various companies involved in the farm businesses are registered in Berwick-on-Tweed. But their activities were centred on Sunwick and Harcarse Hill farms in Berwickshire which the Orrdone Farms administrators hope to sell. They were appointed by an agricultural lending firm owed £3.2 million.

One of Mr Frost and Mr Jennings's ambitious proposals was to house herds of Piedmontese cattle in 'cow palaces' with the animals' excrement being converted into green fuel to power vehicles.

The Orrdone Farms administrators' state in their initial report: "In our discussions both with Mr Frost and the company secretary, we were informed that Orrdone Farms Limited had ceased to trade at the end of May 2019 and that it no longer owned any trading assets (including livestock), or had any employees. Invoices later provided to us showed that all of the Company's trading assets and livestock were sold to Avocet Infinite plc (now Omega Infinite plc) on 1 June 2019." 

The document shows the joint administrators have asked the directors of Orrdone on seven separate occasions for the company's estimated financial position, but a so-called Statement of Affairs had yet to be produced .

Adds the administration report: "We have been provided with two invoices dated 1 June 2019 in the name of Avocet Agriculture Limited (now Orrdone Farms Limited) relating to the sale of all trading assets including farm equipment and livestock to a connected company, Avocet (now Omega) Infinite plc.

"We have not been provided with any evidence that these invoices have been paid, nor has the Company accounted to HM Revenue Customs for the output tax due. UK ALL [the lenders] had not been made aware of the sale of these assets which were largely covered by their debenture. In addition, we understand that some of the farm equipment and vehicles may have been subject to other finance agreements terms."