No, this is not a homage to the founder of Rock ‘n’ Roll, but I’ve used the title of his timeless classic because it kinda fits. But my use of it is not an endorsement of the original (and thankfully expunged) lyrics.
Truth is, I used the song because Tutti Frutti can of course refer to ice cream. It’s Italian for ‘all fruits’.
To explain . . . About a month or so back someone drew my attention to an article in the Daily Post about an ice cream company on Ynys Môn coming back from the dead.
This report can be read as written, though my source hints there’s more to it than meets the eye. So I delved, and it took me on quite a journey.
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MAYDAY! MAYDAY! RED BOAT SINKING!
The company you’re going to read about is The Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd. Set up 9 December 2012. The two shareholders / directors, Anthony Green and Lynda Green. Presumably husband and wife.
To set the scene, here’s the company’s main retail outlet, 34 Castle Street, Beaumaris. (Image from December 2021.) There were other outlets, including Prestatyn.
Also, a ‘production hub‘ on Pen yr Orsedd industrial estate in Llangefni.
Though just down Castle Street, at the Liverpool Arms Hotel, we find a company called Red Boat Ltd. Owned by a couple named Ormond. It was formed over two years before Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd.
Seeing as it’s always filed as dormant it might be a ‘spoiler’, set up to grab the ‘Red Boat’ name. Which would account for the brackets in the other company’s name.
The Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd (hereinafter referred to as RBICP) was put into administration on January 30. After which things moved very quickly.
And for a small company there are interesting players involved, some as far away as San Francisco; and considerable governmental involvement.
I just hope I can make sense of it all. Anyway, sit back and enjoy!
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THE SHAPE-SHIFTING ACCOUNTANTS OF FLINTSHIRE
RBICP used as its registered address accountants Hill & Roberts, at 50 High Street, Mold, Flintshire. It’s the doorway next to the bank, plus the top floor.
There seem to be a number of entries with Companies House for Hill & Roberts Ltd, but the only entry I can find for the company itself is this one.
The address is right, but the company name uses ‘and’ rather than an ampersand (&). And if that wasn’t confusing enough, the only director of Hill and Roberts Ltd is Dylan Vaughan Evans.
There was a Maes Hyfryd Cyf, of Mold, formerly known as Cyfrifwyr Hill & Roberts Accountants Ltd (until 31.10.2019). The directors were Hilary Baines, Ffion Eleri Hampson, and Richard Andrew Roberts.
And also Baines & Roberts Ltd (27.06.2017 – 05.01.2021), with Roberts the majority shareholder. Ffion Eleri Hampson set up Cyfrifwyr H & R Accountants Ltd, again in Mold.
But let’s not overlook HB Accountants, found behind another Mold doorway. This one 8A Chester Street, next-door to and above the constituency office of Bob Roberts MP.
Heading into the sunset, I also found a Hill & Roberts office in Bala. At 76 High Street, behind the war memorial.
The entities not using ‘Ltd’ or ‘Cyf’, are almost certainly partnerships. Perfectly legal, but confusing when we see the same people pop up in different combinations and under slightly different labels.
But what might cause me some concern would be that the companies registered with Companies House (apart from Hill and Roberts Ltd) seem to be very short-lived, and file hardly anything.
Anyway, let’s zip along the A55 back to Beaumaris.
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REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS?
As the article I linked to explains, to get around the financial difficulties afflicting RBICP, a new company was formed in January this year. This was The Artisan Gelato Group Ltd (TAGG). When formed, with a single penny share, the sole director was named as Kelly Donald Pattullo.
TAGG then bought RBICP. To quote the Daily Post article . . .
KBL Advisory approached in January. After discussions it was decided that a pre-pack administration was the best way forward . . . A formal offer was received by (sic) Artisan Gelato Group Ltd.
This was recommended for acceptance by JPS Chartered Surveyors. It was sold to them for £42,000. Employees were transferred over to the new business . . .
So, in February 2024, RBICP went into receivership owing trade creditors money; £213,000 to the ‘Welsh Government’s Development Bank of Wales, and over a hundred thousand to solicitors, administrators, and other professionals.
Another debt mentioned in the administrator’s report (2.6), alongside DBW, is ‘White Oak’, which I hadn’t encountered in the company’s accounts. White Oak Europe, Ltd offers credit facilities, with the directors all US citizens giving the same San Francisco address.
RBICP’s two outstanding debts with the Development Bank of Wales seem to have transferred to TAGG.
So who is Kelly Donald Pattullo? Well, that’s a good question. And while I may not have the full answer, I can at least give you some more information.
It seems Kelly Frances Donald-Pattullo and Samuel Malcolm Pattullo now own the premises used by Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd at 34 Castle Street in Beaumaris. They bought it at the end of May 2022. The stated price being £525,000.
This is corroborated in the Administrator’s report (2.5).
A year later the Pattullos formed 34Castle Ltd, a company involved in the ‘Manufacture of ice cream’. So what’s the relationship between the Pattullos and the Greens?
There has to be one. And it must go back to at least the May 2022 purchase of 34 Castle Street. Almost two years before Kelly Pattullo formed TAGG and took over Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd.
Yet to read the documents filed with Companies House one might think that TAGG came out of the blue.
(Seeing as we’re talking of Italian ice cream, and in case you’re thinking the ‘Pattullo’ name is Italian, it is in fact Scottish. I believe the first element is Pictish, the second Gaelic.)
In the documents filed with Companies House, and specifically the Administrator’s report, we read that Covid is claimed to have played a big part in the RBICP downfall. But the company was already in trouble before the Covid virus was released from a Chinese laboratory.
This is shown in the accounts up to 31 March 2020. These figures cover the summer of 2019 when people were sauntering around Beaumaris enjoying their ice creams.
The accounts suggest that the little Red Boat was heading up Shit Creek at a rate of knots. Just look under ‘Creditors’ (page 2). That figure, £524,678, has gone up over half a million quid in one year!
And while much of it will be accounted for by the DBW loans most, I suspect, refers to the LDF-White Oak hire purchase loans. For it ties in with the rise in ‘Tangible fixed assets’ (page 6) from £246,829 in 2019 to £648,006 in 2020.
The unaudited financial statement submitted by Cyfrifwyr Hill & Roberts of 8a Chester Street, Mold, does not identify the tangible fixed assets, nor does it tell us on what the borrowed money was spent.
As you’ve read, the Administrator’s report of February 2024 says: ‘In May 2022, the Company sold one of its former business premises to support the cash position.’
This has to refer to 34 Castle Street, sold to the Pattullos for £525,000. This influx of cash should then show in the accounts up to 31 March 2023. But I can’t see it.
Where did it go?
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THE RESCUE SHIPS TAKE ON SURVIVORS!
Once it started pulling away from the doomed craft the good ship Artisan Gelato saw many changes on board in a short space of time.
To begin with, two weeks after launch, Kelly Pattullo was joined at TAGG by Anthony Green, who’d presumably swum from the Red Boat. Then we learnt that Green had taken control of the new company at the start of February.
But of more interest, maybe, was the piping aboard of Richard Elmitt. (Am I overdoing the nautical references? “Yes, Jac”.)
Here’s his Linkedin details. In May 2012 he made a couple of career moves.
First, he formed his own company, Redatum Ltd. (Though according to Companies House, this actually happened in April 2011.)
But of more interest to us is that he joined BIC Innovation Ltd, a management consultancy. This outfit is based in Gaerwen, on Ynys Môn. (Though the Linkedin page says Bridgend.) ‘Significant influence’ is exercised by Huw Geraint Watkins.
Watkins is director at a number of other companies. Including Sector Development Wales Partnership Ltd, an agency of the so-called ‘Welsh Government’, trading as ‘Industry Wales‘.
The thought of those socialist buffoons in Corruption Bay directing any ‘strategy’ for our SMEs is quite terrifying. Especially as the Industry Wales website doesn’t seem to have been updated for years.
You may recall Nicola Kneale, a director of RBICP from January 2016 to January 2018, when she worked for Denbighshire County Council. This was likely connected with RBICP leasing the Roundhouse on Prestatyn prom from the council.
Well, last December, Nicola joined Local Partnerships LLP. Here’s the website, and here’s the Companies House entry.
I’m fairly sure there’s a connection between Local Partnerships, owned by the Treasury, LGA, ‘Welsh Government’; Industry Wales, owned by ‘Welsh Government’; and BIC Innovation on Ynys Môn, where the Treasury is a major shareholder.
On the surface, all would now appear to be hunky-dory. Everything and everyone has been salvaged, spruced up, and the re-named Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd is ready to sail serenely on as The Artisan Gelato Group Ltd.
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CONCLUSION
Fundamentally, I believe we are dealing with a kind of deception; not necessarily illegal, but still naughty.
Clearly, the Greens of Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd and Kelly Pattullo of The Artisan Gelato Group Ltd knew each other from at least May 2022, when she and Samuel Pattullo are said to have bought the ice cream shop at 34 Castle Street, Beaumaris.
Next, I believe it was decided to do away with RBICP. A speedy disposal via a pre-pack administration deal was decided upon, and at the start of 2024 the company was ‘put up for sale’.
Along came TAGG, with sole director Kelly Pattullo, snapping up RBICP for a bargain-basement price of £42,000. Soon after, Anthony Green of RBICP became a director, and now he controls the new company.
But with Tony Green in charge of The Artisan Gelato Group Ltd since 1 February he effectively sold Red Boat (Ice Cream Parlour) Ltd to himself.
That was always the intention. The ‘sale’ was a charade.
Another worry concerns 34 Castle Street. Was it really sold in May 2022, or was it simply a ploy by a company in financial difficulties to remove a valuable asset from the reach of creditors?
Because as I’ve said, according to the Administrator’s report the money from this sale was ploughed back into RBICP. But I see no evidence of this in the 2023 accounts.
Which would make sense if the property wasn’t really sold, but merely transferred under some clever arrangement to disguise ownership. These things are done.
So many questions. If you know any of the answers, stick ’em in a bottle and chuck it in the sea. I’ll get it eventually.
To help you follow this saga, I’ve drawn up a little timeline of events.
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© Royston Jones 2024