Bankrupt Avocet boss has "less than £100,000"

by LESTER CROSS

Bankrupt businessman Martin Frost has told a Sunday newspaper he has potential liabilities running into many millions of pounds while his personal estate is worth less than £100,000, and that he is dying.

Mr Frost who was chairman of the Avocet Group until Monday of this week when he and his wife were bankrupted by a judge has circulated an email with attachments including his response to questions from a Sunday Mail journalist. 

The paper carried a two page feature on the Avocet revolutionary fuel saga several weeks ago and looks set to feature a follow up on Mr Frost's business activities in tomorrow's edition.

These columns have carried detailed reports on the bankruptcy proceedings at Leeds Business and Property Court where finance company United Kingdom Agricultural Lending Ltd. (UKALL) successfully petitioned Judge Joanna Geddes to make the Frosts bankrupt. The couple are said to owe UKALL some £4 million including interest on an original loan of £3.25 million.

In his response to the Sunday Mail, Mr Frost writes: "I was a director and major ANC Plc [Avocet Natural Capital] shareholder. Since I am dying; from 2015, I gave away some £20 million of which some £5 million was given to ANC Plc shareholders in the last three years. 

"It is possible that some of this £5 million gift might be clawed back from those I had gifted should my bankruptcy ultimately stand. Otherwise, I cannot see what other complications there could be to ANC Plc shareholders."

Mr Frost claims his legal and accountancy team - they were not present in court for Monday's judgment -  could not understand why UKALL should wish to bankrupt him..."since for impending death reasons my personal estate is now less than £100,000 with potential liabilities to HMRC and others running into many millions UKALL will not even recover their legal fees from Janet and I."

In his email Mr Frost also takes a swipe at Judge Geddes and levels accusations at UKALL's counsel Jonathan Rodger. 

According to Mr Frost: "Judge Geddes may be a very good family law judge, but she got her insolvency law & contract law badly wrong. (For example, a guarantee by way of deed needs both to be dated and signed – mine and Janet’s were not.) Judge Geddes nasty comments about the Scottish judiciary have prompted a Scottish complaint against Judge Geddes."

In his submission to the court Mr Rodger outlined the concerted efforts made to serve statutory papers on Mr and Mrs Frost in Berwick-on-Tweed and Scarborough as part of the process of promoting the petition. He also said Avocet appeared to be practising alchemy; in other words the fuel patents held by ANC are worthless.

But Mr Frost tells the Sunday Mail: "Counsel for the Petitioners at best misled or at worse lied to the court re the service of the statutory demands – video evidence contradicts his assertions – and indeed due to a postal error Janet Frost had still not been formally served with a Bankruptcy Petition. Note: further complaints against UKALL counsel and ---- over their alchemy suggestions plainly shows they know NOT this cause."

The former director of numerous companies has told shareholders and investors in the Group via newsletters that he is terminally ill with a rare form of blood cancer.

And when Mr Frost was sequestrated [made bankrupt] under Scottish law in 2004 a report from accountant Alan Hall to the Court of Session declared: "Martin Frost’s senior's health is poor, suffering polycythemia vera and advanced osteoporosis, life expectancy 2- 4 years."

The very detailed report from Mr Hall, seeking to have Mr Frost's sequestration recalled, is still available on the businessman's archived website.

Included in the report are details of Mr Frost's assets and liabilities. It says: "In 1996 Martin Frost entered into an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement, an English personal insolvency); in January 2000 his personal obligations ceased but his responsibility to the IVA Trust Fund remains. On behalf of the IVA Trust, Martin Frost continues to litigate.

"From 2000 till to date Martin Frost has received personal loans from family and friends of approximately £600,000. In general they have agreed to postpone their debt behind the other debt. In addition to the above loans Martin Frost has approximately £50,000 of unsecured institutional personal loans and credit cards, repayable over a three year period. Third parties will meet the monthly payments on these institutional loans, in like vein third parties agreed prior to sequestration to settle all other small personal and trade debts."

Mr Hall adds: "An oil painting by Richard Parkes Bonnington was valued in 1998 by the Antiques Road Show personnel at between £300,000 to £400,000; the painting has an excellent provenance, being authenticated repeatedly over the last 100 years and was used in the mid nineties to secure some £250,000 of borrowing with the Bank of Scotland.

"On balance I believe Martin Frost’s assets as stated being available to the sequestrated estate should if properly realised exceed not less than £2,000,000, while liabilities and contingent liabilities should not exceed £1,013,000."