The Charity Commission has appointed Ian Oakley-Smith, head of PwC’s charity sector team in the UK, as the interim manager of the Park Charitable Trust to take over running the charity on a temporary basis following concerns about its investment activities
The charity, which was registered in 2002, is based in Manchester and has objects that include the advancement of the Jewish faith and the advancement of Jewish education.
In June 2014, the commission began investigating concerns about the loss of investment capital by the charity and potential unauthorised trustee benefits.
It has now announced that Oakley-Smith is to be the interim manager at Park Charitable Trust. In this role he will have all the powers and duties of the trustees and the appointment is to the exclusion of the trustees.
In addition to taking control of and protecting the charity’s assets Oakley-Smith is tasked with conducting a review, which will look at the charity’s investments and seek to establish the assets, liabilities and creditors of the charity.
The review will also examine the past governance of the charity and the composition of the trustee board, which will include examining whether conflicts of interests and loyalty arising from the trustees’ interests in other companies, other trusteeships and their family relationships were identified and managed by them. It will consider whether there has been any breach of duty and/or trust in relation to the operation of the charity.
The commission says the trustees have indicated that they intend to wind up the charity. To ensure that this action is completed in a transparent and open manner and by a non-conflicted person, the scope of the appointment also includes completing the dissolution of the charity.
The charity’s accounts for the financial years ended 31 March 2013 and 31 March 2014 indicate an annual income well in excess of £2m, although the 2015 accounts show income had dropped to around £500,000.
The 2014 accounts make reference to gains on investment assets of £4.6m, representing gains made on the sale of property investments as well as sundry other adjustments to property investments syndicates.
In their financial review, the trustees state: ‘The trustees are delighted to report that almost all of the property investments are returning at least a 10% return. The trustees consider this exceptional when compared with returns available on deposits in any of the banking institutions. These investment returns have been consistent for a number of years and are not at the expense of any exposure of loan to value covenants that would put these investments at risk.’
