by Jon Moulton, September 15, 2014, 2:51am, I AM a great fan of crowdfunding – it really is a cheap way of using modern technology to enable investors, including very small ones, to invest in all manner of things. So what can go wrong? Well, the regulators can stop it as effectively as they have made share offers to the public so infeasible that even Royal Mail could not be sold to its owners by public offer. The stopping process has started. It seems very strange to me that you can lose your house at Ladbrokes in a few minutes, but you cannot buy £500 worth of shares in a company you like (no matter how well presented) without being a “sophisticated investor” or taking advice (how?), or certifying it is less than 10 per cent of your investible assets (a nebulous and transient calculation). It would mightily simplify matters and show a proper sense of proportion if the FCA took the view that individual investments under £5,000, say, were simply unregulated. The regulator makes it clear that investing in early stage investments is very risky and they are right on that. However, while their risk focus means more unread risk […]
Beware the celebrities offering investors strange deals: CrowdFund Beat.
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