Tom Winnifrith

John Zaccheus Winnifrith, the self-styled ‘Sherriff of AIM’, was born on 12th January 1968. He has been married four times: Helen Norton in 1988, Ceri Sullivan in 1993, Sarah Thomas in 1998 and Ruth Garrett in 2004. He is now living with a woman called Monisha Varadan, to whom, in YouTube videos posted on his blog, he refers as his ‘wife’.  Winnifrith posts weekly videos on YouTube under the name “Real Man Pizza Company”.

Together with his ex wife, Ruth, Tom Winnifrith has a daughter who was born in February 2005. Zak Mir is the godfather.

From around 2000 until 2012, Tom Winnifrith lived at 49 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3QB. This property was owned by a Robert and Louise Kelvey, who purchased it in 1999. However, in May 2012, the property was sold for £980,000 to Ivy Limited, a company incorporated in the Isle of Man and shown on the Land Register as c/o Duane Morris (a law firm) of 10 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4UQ and also of IFG International Limited, International House, Castle Hill, Victoria Road, Douglas IM2 4RB.

An Isle of Man Company search on Ivy Ltd does not identify the beneficial owner, however one cannot discount the possibility that Winnifrith is behind Ivy Ltd and that he has purchased the property using that vehicle for tax purposes. (Oddly, however, Isle of Man Companies House records show that Ivy Ltd was dissolved in 2004.)

Also in 2012, Winnifrith purchased 14 Woodburn Square, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 4DB. This is a terraced property in which Winnifrith resided with MonishaVaradan, during the time his business, Rivington Street Holdings, was located in the Isle of Man. The property is currently tenanted but is also up for sale at an asking price of £230,000.

Social media checks reveal that, earlier in 2014, Winnifrith purchased a property in the Mani area of Southern Greece. He was living there from July 2014, whilst renovating the property but returned to UK in late September. It may be that he intends to escape his problems in UK to live there

Winnifrith attended school in Warwick and went on to Oxford where he became President of Oxford University Social and Liberal Democrats in 1989/1990.

Following university, Winnifrith joined County NatWest WoodMac as a graduate trainee in 1990 and subsequently worked for The Investors Chronicle, the London Evening Standard, AFX News and UKiNvest.com before setting up T1ps.com Limited in 2000.

Winnifrith maintains no current company directorships. He has previous directorships as follows:

·         RSHTL Limited (previously T1ps.com (in administration)

·         Godel Technologies Limited (active)

·         Rivington Street Media Limited (liquidation)

·         Sharecray.com Limited (active)

·         Peterhouse Corporate Finance Limited (active)

·         RSHBL Limited (in administration)

·         London Matched Markets Exchange Limited (active)

·         Active IT Limited (dissolved)

·         The Square Mile Bookstore Limited (dissolved)

·         T1ps Investment Management Limited (dissolved)

·         Rivington Street Holdings (UK) Limited (in administration)

·         The Real Man Pizza Company (active)

In March 2000, Winnifrith was a founding director of T1ps.com Ltd (name changed after incorporation from Budget Flights Ltd). It is of note that Anne Cawkwell, (Simon Cawkwell’s wife) was appointed Company Secretary on the same day that Winnifrith became a director.

Commodity Watch PLC took over T1ps.com Ltd in 2008 and following that changed its name to Rivington Street Holdings UK PLC (later Rivington Street Holdings UK Ltd). In 2010, company moved its trading operation to the Isle of Man and Winnifrith became CEO before being ousted in 2012 [His exit from Rivington Street Holdings also ended his involvement in T1ps.com Ltd which subsequently changed its name to RSHTL Ltd in 2014 and is now in administration].

In September 2012, following his exit from Rivington Street, Winnifrith launched the online tipping service, Nifty Fifty, where he was joined two months later by former T1ps man, Steve Moore. Following that, Nifty Fifty was joined by Lucien Miers, who Winnifrith describes as “the UK’s most cerebral short seller … he truly is the ‘numbers man’ in the bear community”.

The Real Man Pizza Company was incorporated in March 2011 but only appears to have begun trading after Winnifrith and Nigel Diver were appointed directors in September 2012. That said, as at the time of writing this report, no accounts have been filed. Winnifrith ceased to be a director in September 2012 but he is still closely associated with the restaurant, in which he hosts free evening seminars on share buying. It is perhaps worth noting that Darren Atwater became a director in March 2013.

It is a further demonstration of the links between Winnifrith and Simon Cawkwell that the latter’s wife, Anne Cawkwell, was Company Secretary of Active IT Ltd simultaneous to Winnifrith being a director i.e. from 26 May 2006 to 19 May 2010.

Shareprophets was incorporated on 8th April 2013 and is registered at 91-95 Clerkenwell Road, London, EC1R 5BX, which is the address of Winnifrith’s Real Man Pizza Company. The only recorded director is Mr Darren Atwater but it is not clear whether he plays any operational role or whether he is simply a nominee for Winnifrith, as is probably the case with Real Man Pizza Company.

The Shareprophets business is described as “Other service activities not elsewhere classified” and it has yet to file accounts. Shareprophets runs investment seminars with Winnifrith being a regular presenter and the primary contributor. In other words, Shareprophets appears to all intents and purposes, to be Tom Winnifrith.

The ShareProphets website churns out regular attacks and has Tom Winnifrith quoting Cawkwell comments on shares.

There is no recorded disciplinary history against Winnifrith on the Financial Services Register; however, it is clear he has been the subject of complaints to the FSA and FCA.

Tom Winnifrith has a web site www.tomwinnifrith.com which summaries the various media links with which he is associated. He is also a regular Tweeter.

Winnifrith writes blogs in www.shareprophets.co with regular comment relating to target companies. He uses the email address tomat49@gmail.com (a reference to 49 Rivington Street) for correspondence from readers of his blogs.