It was just a few days ago that news regarding Neo & Bee began to start a small panic in the bitcoin community. Havelock Investments noted that they were halting trading of the Neo & Bee fund due to “abnormal activity”, and the company’s head honcho — Danny Brewster — had seemingly gone off the radar.
Reports indicated that Brewster had become unreachable for a number of days, raising the question: did their clients and investors just get ‘goxxed’?
As it were, Mr. Brewster has broken his silence on Tuesday morning on the Bitcointalk forum, noting that his recent silence “has been forced due to the actions of two people”.
Here’s what he said:
I left Cyprus on a short term temporary basis for reasons that will follow, I haven’t shipped anything from Cyprus and I certainly haven’t run away with company or peoples money or bitcoins. Following those posts on the forum, I received direct threats targeted directly at my daughter, they have been reported to the relevant authorities, Once those threats were made I took the advice to remain outside of Cyprus and remove contact with anyone that could be responsible for the threats, this included not speaking with members of staff that could be responsible.
According to Brewster, he had left Cyprus to secure additional capital for the Neo & Bee business by using his own equity in the company, as his company had run out of liquidity available.
He continues:
Every single Bitcoin raised and spent is accounted for, any claims of embezzlement are nothing but empty claims with no foundation. There were coins lost in BitFunder/WeExchange which I personally covered and assumed that debt of 1420BTC to ensure the company could continue unaffected, UKYO also owes me an additional 260BTC separately from the 1420BTC. I also have 369.8BTC of my own Bitcoin stuck with MtGox that would have been given to the company to settle all creditors and continue operations whilst more capital was raised. Having funds on MtGox was a personal risk that I assumed and no company funds were ever held on there.
In an interesting turn of events, the sale of Brewster’s equity in the company will mean a new CEO is incoming. Brewster explains:
My original plan was to raise more capital to allow the company to achieve its potential through the sale of some of my equity. The moment threats were made towards my daughter this plan changed and I decided I would sell all of my equity, allowing the new owner to appoint a new CEO.
The whole process will be completed and handled through an agency that specializes in these matters, once the final details are completed, the agency details will be made available to interested parties who wish to purchase 100% of my equity in LMB Subsidiaries Ltd thus taking full control of all subsidiaries. I shall also be providing the new owner full rights over the Bitcoin debts currently owed by BitFunder/WeExchange as I know people are working on a solution to recovering those debts for everyone that has funds stuck there. This process will also write off all directors loans I have made to the company and I shall not receive any financial compensation through this sale process.
Brewster acknowledges a mistake he made during the initial fundraising of the company, using BitFunder/WeExchange, for which he had to cover losses from his own pockets. That money could have been used to pay the company’s creditors.
“I apologize for my silence but I would like to reiterate that ZERO customer funds are under my control and none have been lost or used for business purposes,” Brewster said. “My decisions are based on what I deem to be the best option for my family.”
Brewster’s post raises more questions than it answers, it seems. With a new CEO inbound, can anything be done to save Neo & Bee? Is all it will ever be a short-lived start-up that’s doomed?
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see where this goes. Updates forthcoming.