DJM, the end.

[Edwardian]

20 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Go away. 

 

 

I leave you with the keys for a week or two and it's a bomb site.

 

 

 

A well earned rest, I don't doubt, and you've really nothing to worry about ...

 

 

 

 

[melmoth]

Das Boot is on the other foot...

[antrobuscp]

19 minutes ago, melmoth said:

Das Boot is on the other foot...

From St Ives New Year a few years back .............

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2019 by antrobuscp

[Matt C]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Nope, he's on holiday. Doubtless watching and chuckling from the deck of his superyacht.

 

 

I didn't know Andy was into crowdfunding ?  

 

Hat coat gone  

 

(I think he owes you a large bottle of something half decent from duty free when he DOES finally swan back into yhe office  )

Edited June 7, 2019 by Mattc6911

[JSpencer]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The micro accounts are obviously not the best sort of information from which to forma clear picture of a company's activities but they do exist and it is to be assumed that the numbers shown are hopefully correct.

 

The company was incorporated on 8 July 2013.  it's first micro accounts covered the year ended 31 July 2014 and show debtors of £1,997, cash in hand/at the bank of £7,851, and amounts falling due to creditors within 1 year at £9,595 with nothing showing for creditors beyond one year.

 

One year later there cash in hand etc figure had been discontinued, but current assets were now shown as £22,022 while creditors due payment within one year was £21,212.  again no. creditors falling due after 1 year.  Obviously by then the accounts were including work in hand hence the much higher figures.

 

At the 2016 date current assets had grown to £27, 946, Pre-payments and accrued income made their first appearance at  £500 while creditors due within one year stood at £18, 316 with none beyond that date.  Oddly the figures for 2015 were different from those shown in the 2015 account despite the fact that the 2015 account had been produced in April 2016, equally two of the 2014 figures were different when shown in the 2015 account.

 

The 2017 account was submitted late and following threat of strike -off.   Fixed assets had rocketed from zero in the previous year to £81,934 and current assets had grown to £56,886 and the 2016 current assets had also been slightly adjusted upwards.  Creditors within one year had grown to £35, 926 and creditors over 1 year made its first appearance with a very round number of £45,000.  The 2018 account showed fixed assets dropping back to £68, 348 (depreciation??) while current assets had grown to £79, 726.  One year creditors had also grown, to £ 65,597 while over 1 year creditors had dropped to £22,333.

 

There are very few things which can be drawn from these numbers except a growth of assets and creditors - the latter presumably including crowd funders but amounting in total over two successive years as to c.£80,00 over a 2 year period which is a lot of money for a small company although below declared asset value.

 

One interesting point is that the early years show very little in the way of creditors which seems to suggest that no mortgage money was ever involved or that if it was it was a relatively small amount

 

When he first appeared, he had CADS for a handful of projects on the go and clearly paid for the J94 development. He must have started the company with about 60-100k either from personal funds and/or by re mortgaging his house keeping the latter private from the Company. 

The explosion in fixed assets might tie when the J94 and class 71 tooling was delivered.

We see an ever increasing amount creditor figure in 2017 may have been taken out against the fixed assets to pay for further business operations. I don,t think these figures refer to crowd funding money especially as a huge chunk of £65k appeared 2018 had to fall within one year. 

It would have been pretty obvious to anyone doing the book keeping by Q2 2018 (and knew about the China tools issue) that there was a growing creditor  issue requiring a miracle to resolve it (in one post in 2018 he even said he changed accountants - maybe the truth was there and hard to swallow). A year later that called and it is end game.

Edited June 7, 2019 by JSpencer

[Roy Langridge]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Nope, he's on holiday. Doubtless watching and chuckling from the deck of his superyacht.

 

A perfectly timed holiday! He obviously had some prior notice of what was coming and stitched you up Phil!

Roy

[jonhall]

5 hours ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

To be fair DJM WAS unproved when it set up - Dave Jones himself may have had issues in the past, but to be honest who would usually go hunting for the background on company directors and their employment in other companies as a matter of course? As for ordering the APT, DJM had at that point delivered several models - yes some people don't like some aspects, many loved them.

 

 

 

That the business was called 'Dave Jones Models' and that crowdfunders were not simply customers, but were in effect investors in the company suggests that showing an interest in his track record was appropriate, unfortunately if you were new to the hobby, you probably only saw his latest incarnation.

 

One of the great difficulties for those who had 'doubts' about Dave Jones, was that his previous enterprise collapsed in the pre-internet era and had many fewer clients left out of pocket, therefore fewer individuals had personal experiences to relate, and there was a much smaller online footprint to refer to.

 

I knew that n'thusiast resprays had left a number of angry customers when it closed, and had even heard an apocryphal story of a creditor chasing him round a show with a baseball bat (which made me smile in a 'surely that can't be true? ' sort of way) but since I didn't have any dealings with either n'thusiast resprays or DJM I had no 'skin in the game'. Fortunately he never announced anything I was interested in, and having had a number of skirmishes on RMweb about CAD designs when he was in Dapol's employ, I was always pretty glad he never announced anything that I might have been tempted to part with money for.

 

Jon

[Amand]

1 hour ago, Phil Parker said:

 

Nope, he's on holiday. Doubtless watching and chuckling from the deck of his superyacht.

Hopefully not paid for using the extra revenue generated by Gold membership? Crowdfunded holiday anyone?

[Roy Langridge]

3 minutes ago, jonhall said:

 

That the business was called 'Dave Jones Models' and that crowdfunders were not simply customers, but were in effect investors in the company suggests that showing an interest in his track record was appropriate, unfortunately if you were new to the hobby, you probably only saw his latest incarnation.

 

One of the great difficulties for those who had 'doubts' about Dave Jones, was that his previous enterprise collapsed in the pre-internet era and had many fewer clients left out of pocket, therefore fewer individuals had personal experiences to relate, and there was a much smaller online footprint to refer to.

 

I knew that n'thusiast resprays had left a number of angry customers when it closed, and had even heard an apocryphal story of a creditor chasing him round a show with a baseball bat (which made me smile in a 'surely that can't be true? ' sort of way) but since I didn't have any dealings with either n'thusiast resprays or DJM I had no 'skin in the game'. Fortunately he never announced anything I was interested in, and having had a number of skirmishes on RMweb about CAD designs when he was in Dapol's employ, I was always pretty glad he never announced anything that I might have been tempted to part with money for.

 

Jon

 

That post says an awful lot of what I feel now. It seems those that knew of DJ's problems / history stayed away, but those of us who didn't, didn't.

 

I have never been a N gauge modeller and have no knowledge of anything in that gauge that was good / bad related to DJ. As for his Dapol days, the oldest locos I have them was are Class 73s, I had (and to an extent still have) no knowledge of Dave's involvement in Dapol models - i.e. what models he was responsible for and what not.

 

Whilst I have obviously seen his communications and manner of doing business recently, I am still non-the-wiser as to what went on before. To be quite honest, it is likely to stay that way as there is nothing to gain from me now spending time finding out what was tucked away that I may have been able find 18 months ago. I will draw a line under this sorry tale, kiss goodbye to my £250 and have sympathy with Dave. He never set out for this to happen, and the enthusiasm that was there for all to see, has most likely cost him everything.

Roy

 

 

 

[Philip Jackson]

I've be burned on indegogo and kickstarter. Now this. Bang goes my deposit for the full length APT. the only saving grace is I hadn't started at massive layout to accommodate it

[Persephone]

There's a lot of this "he's lost everything" assumption going on around here. I suspect at the end of all this sorry affair you will find that the only thing he has lost is whatever remained of his already tattered reputation within the industry. In my experience of dealing with folk like him before I retired, they have an uncanny knack of being able to walk away from train wrecks (sic) intact. 

 

 

[96701]

2 minutes ago, Persephone said:

There's a lot of this "he's lost everything" assumption going on around here. I suspect at the end of all this sorry affair you will find that the only thing he has lost is whatever remained of his already tattered reputation within the industry. In my experience of dealing with folk like him before I retired, they have an uncanny knack of being able to walk away from train wrecks (sic) intact. 

 

 

Have you had a business fail on you? My brother has, and whilst he carried on living in his re-mortgaged house, he is still feeling the financial effects 15 years later at the age of 68. I wouldn't call my brother's life anything like intact after having lost a fortune and had to work in job that he hated just to keep food on the table.

[The Stationmaster]

2 hours ago, Ravenser said:

 

Tooling for an N Gauge Class 17 , for the OO J94 and Class 71 have all been specifically mentioned. It appears that the N gauge Mermaid may have been affected

 

The O2 , 14xx and 1361 tank were all included in DJM's "protective" registration of designs. Those registrations were made over 12 months after release of the models, so are presumably invalid - but they must indicate DJM saw those tools as "theirs" , and feared that parties in the UK would be supplied with models from them by parties in China. 

 

The Beattie Well Tank seems to have been forgotten about by everyone 

The tooling for all the Kernow models, including the Well Tank, is definitely not included in the 'affected DJM tooling' because it is Kernow's tooling and some of it has been re-used for subsequent runs of Kernow models (e.g the Well Tank).  I understand that the tooling for the Hattons 14XX is also not affected although there might at one time have been some doubt about that.  The IPs are basically an irrelevance, even if they were within appropriate date - what counts is the tooling and the .STL file.

 

As far as I 'm aware all the originally affected DJM tooling was at the one factory and was the incomplete N gauge Class 17, and the 00 gauge Class 71 and J94 plus CAD work that was in progress - basically the Class 92.  There may also have been some wagon tooling but I'm not sure about that.

[33052]

Ive been an avid reader of these threads of late,obviously as have many others.Was I hopeful of a high spec Class 92 - certainly,was I optimistic that one would actually materialise ,over time probably not.Im only down £30,this being  more of  an annoyance rather than an inconvenience,it certainly wont have any effect on my life.But the question is has Dave got a future in this hobby,some will say yes,some will say no.To me you have three parts of the Jigsaw,(1) us the buying public,(2) the manufacturers and (3) the retailers.If you lose the trust of one of those you might just be able to enable a recovery,but to lose all three I would think it very hard but hey-ho time will tell.

[Ouroborus]

https://djmodels.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/DJModels-Ltd-End-of-Year-thoughts-2018.pdf

 

Flip through to the final page "the future", 2nd para, to read an incredibly accurate prediction

[Pandora]

The London Gazette  contains the notice DJ Models are in Creditors Voluntary Liquidation,  ie the Company  Director(s) of DJ Models have chosen to  liquidate as opposed to debtors who petition to liquidate

[Hal Nail]

2 minutes ago, Hot.In.Sing said:

And I'm actually an arch-capitalist by nature.

 

I had you nailed on as a diplomat.

[Red Devil]

37 minutes ago, 96701 said:

Have you had a business fail on you? My brother has, and whilst he carried on living in his re-mortgaged house, he is still feeling the financial effects 15 years later at the age of 68. I wouldn't call my brother's life anything like intact after having lost a fortune and had to work in job that he hated just to keep food on the table.

I've been very close, so I think, yeah I can speak from near experience, I had a company 'up the food chain' go bust on me and take me for a tidy sum that crippled me short term and taught me a lesson....always make sure you know who you're working for and are they going to pay you!

 

I'll be honest and say I've always been sceptical about DJM, doing commissions for  retailers was pretty much what's known locally to me as ''brass plating'' (within the building trades), that is to say using your knowledge and contacts to provide a selling on service taking a small cut on sales etc, this works ok if you're good at it, you supply the customer with what they want, personal service and no cock ups. Generally speaking it's short termism as something will go wrong or the customer will find your preferential supplier and go direct as witnessed by Kernow, Hattons etc, why pay a premium on something you can do 'in house' better/cheaper, most DJM releases for both seemed to have issues, you're not going to rush back are you? 

 

Basically DJM opened the door for easier direct retail commissions, adding more competition to the target markets. I do feel sorry for those caught up in this who are out of pocket but for me it all seemed heading only one way for an awfully long time.

 

Have the reasons for Mr Jones departure from Dapol ever been made public, when DJM set up it all seemed quite ad hoc and on the hoof, the departure thread seems it was a very quick start up etc? 

 

[Ravenser]

11 minutes ago, Hot.In.Sing said:

A business fail on you ? As if it's a lung, or a heart, or a liver ? It fails on you, you don't fail it ?

 

Business failures are invariably attributable to their owners.

 

…..

Apologies for picking on this comment but it really riled me.

 

And I'm actually an arch-capitalist by nature.

 

Nope. They can fail because the other side's airforce drop bombs on them, because their owners are arrested by the state, hit by tariffs and other restraints, because the ship sank in a storm, because the government wrecked the economy or seized the assets, etc etc

 

Not usual in these times, but certainly possible (think Venezuela or the 1940s..)

 

I'm not sure the failure of Patisserie Valerie was exactly due to its owners

 

"usually" - yes. "invariably" - no.

[Roy Langridge]

14 minutes ago, Hot.In.Sing said:

A business fail on you ? As if it's a lung, or a heart, or a liver ? It fails on you, you don't fail it ?

 

Business failures are invariably attributable to their owners.

 

As for the fact that your brother has had to do a job he hates to keep food on the table then I'd guess 75%+ of the UK population wouldn't have a great deal of sympathy with that predicament, as they have always been in that situation.

 

If your brother had a fortune and managed to lose it then that is no-ones problem than his. I'd wager he was trying to increase his fortune, and failed. I doubt it was a charitable exercise on his behalf. 

 

Apologies for picking on this comment but it really riled me.

 

And I'm actually an arch-capitalist by nature.

 

The majority of small businesses fail because of Cash Flow issues - not all of it attributable to the owners. we have had major organisations not pay invoices for an eternity - simply because they are big and we are small. Yes you can budget for a delay, but only so much.

 

As for my company, we nearly failed as we started. We set ourselves up knowing we had two big contracts to come from a European Intergovernmental Organisation. We nearly lost those as we were not VAT registered and HMRC (or whatever they were called back then) refused to give us a VAT number until we had contracts. Limbo ensued and it could have bankrupted us, and nearly did. Had we been a shop we would have been registered before opening, as we were not, we couldn't. What nonsense is that?

 

Thankfully one person at our potential put his neck on the line and gave us contracts without a VAT number on the understanding that we provide it within two weeks. I will never forget his kindness.

 

Roy

[Hot.In.Sing]

6 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

Nope. They can fail because the other side's airforce drop bombs on them, because their owners are arrested by the state, hit by tariffs and other restraints, because the ship sank in a storm, because the government wrecked the economy or seized the assets, etc etc

 

Not usual in these times, but certainly possible (think Venezuela or the 1940s..)

 

I'm not sure the failure of Patisserie Valerie was exactly due to its owners

 

"usually" - yes. "invariably" - no.

 

Ok, splitting hairs. I'll give you that 'usually' would be a better choice of word than 'invariably'.

 

But there isn't usually some 'insurer didn't pay due to force majeure' element to business failures.

 

So I'd prefer to go with 'in the vast majority of cases' if that's acceptable ?

 

As for the cake shop - if you don't know whats going on in your business then you, as owner, are likely culpable in one way or another.  You are paid the big bucks to know your business inside out, surely ?

 

 

 

 

[Hot.In.Sing]

22 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

The majority of small businesses fail because of Cash Flow issues - not all of it attributable to the owners. we have had major organisations not pay invoices for an eternity - simply because they are big and we are small. Yes you can budget for a delay, but only so much.

 

As for my company, we nearly failed as we started. We set ourselves up knowing we had two big contracts to come from a European Intergovernmental Organisation. We nearly lost those as we were not VAT registered and HMRC (or whatever they were called back then) refused to give us a VAT number until we had contracts. Limbo ensued and it could have bankrupted us, and nearly did. Had we been a shop we would have been registered before opening, as we were not, we couldn't. What nonsense is that?

 

Thankfully one person at our potential put his neck on the line and gave us contracts without a VAT number on the understanding that we provide it within two weeks. I will never forget his kindness.

 

 

I'm not for one second suggesting that Small Business is easy, or gets a fair crack of the whip - especially from larger incumbents.

 

However I am saying that a failure to comprehend these realities doesn't do Small Business any favours.

 

It is an uphill struggle. Why wouldn't it be ?

 

It's not realistic to think the big boys will willingly give breathing space to small upstarts - and all of those of you have started a business know this, as fact.

[Roy Langridge]

16 minutes ago, Hot.In.Sing said:

 

Ok, splitting hairs. I'll give you that 'usually' would be a better choice of word than 'invariably'.

 

But there isn't usually some 'insurer didn't pay due to force majeure' element to business failures.

 

So I'd prefer to go with 'in the vast majority of cases' if that's acceptable ?

 

As for the cake shop - if you don't know whats going on in your business then you, as owner, are likely culpable in one way or another.  You are paid the big bucks to know your business inside out, surely ?

 

 

 

 

Do you run a business? From your statements I am assuming not.

 

When you run a business you rely on others to do their job and you cannot be an expert in every field. For example, chartered accountants have been responsible for a fair few failures over the years - do you expect every business boss to be as equally well versed in accountancy law as somebody who hold qualifications? In law, the business owner is still liable as the accountant is an agent of the company, but you will find many cases online of the accountancy firms having to pay out on these failings. Sadly, the damage may already have been done at that point.

 

For us, the challenges have been vast. My business in in aviation law and compliance. Whilst working in this field (not all of it with my company) we have had to face: 2 Gulf Wars, the Balkan crisis, SARS, 9/11, the European Banking crisis, introduction of the Euro - all of which have had major negative influences on the business. We have watched competitors and companion organisations fail to those events.

 

Yes, many failures are down to bad planning, or indeed a dumb idea in the first place  - selling ice cubes to the Eskimos etc. But to suggest "all" or even  "usually" is pushing it.

 

Roy

Edited June 7, 2019 by Roy Langridge
Typo

[Phil Parker]

Anyone care to explain how any of this relates to the DJM situation this thread is about?

[Widnes Model Centre]

1 minute ago, Phil Parker said:

Anyone care to explain how any of this relates to the DJM situation this thread is about?

 

Nope, but I think it involves cakes. So I am waiting for the tasty bit.