Tunbridge Wells companies received £2m government loans before folding

Companies in a business which left investors facing losses of up to £30m collectively received Covid loans up to the value of £2m, the BBC has found.

Kent-based JVIP Group told its clients that they could receive more than 10% interest on their investments.

But many of the companies linked to the group folded last year.

Documents show that companies in the group controlled by Peter Dabner received more than 40 Covid bounce back loans. Mr Dabner denies any wrongdoing.

Many of the associated companies collapsed at the beginning of 2022 and are now in the hands of administrators.

The documents filed at Companies House appear to show companies in the JVIP group received more than 40 bounce back loans, each of about £50,000.

The government’s Bounce Bank Loan (BBL) scheme was set up in April 2020 with the aim of keeping small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.

A total of 1.5 million loans worth £47bn were issued through the initiative, after about a quarter of UK businesses applied.

The BBC has analysed the documents from JVIP’s 140 associated companies and discovered more than 40 of them show debts to banks, mainly Barclays’ insolvency team, of either £50,000 or just under.

These debts were bounce back loans received by companies that Peter Dabner, from Tunbridge Wells, was the director of in 2020, the BBC understands.

Vicki Harper, a trained accountant who invested in two Tunbridge Wells flats being renovated by one of the associated JVIP group companies, said she was shocked to find out the company she had invested in had received a BBL of at least £45.000.

“The maximum you could borrow is 50K or 25% of your turnover so that would be suggesting this company had 200k turnover,” she said.

“I don’t see how that is possible if you’re renting two flats out in Tunbridge Wells. With all the will in the world you’re not going to get 200k of rental income.”

One of the eligibility criteria for receiving a BBL was whether the business applying for the loan was not in difficulty before the pandemic.

Peter Dabner has claimed the businesses were not in difficulty until January 2022.

However, a former member of staff who wishes to remain anonymous, said alarm bells were ringing in January 2020, three months before the first lockdown.

She told the BBC: “There was concern a few key members of staff had left and with that was coming back the rumours that the company was in trouble and they weren’t going to be able to survive.”

Mr Dabner has not yet responded to our questions about bounce back loans.

Previously he has told the BBC that he “refutes entirely, and without reservation, any suggestion of wrongdoing or fraud in the management of JVIP,” adding that what happened to the companies would be fully scrutinised during the insolvency process.