Bar Works is a company that buys retail spaces, converts them and rents them out as co-working offices. Renwick Haddow, the man behind the Capital Alternatives network of scam companies is a “key figure” behind Bar Works, according to an article on The Real Deal website. Bar Works, meanwhile, claims that Haddow is just a consultant to the company.
Actually, Bar Works is not a company. It’s a series of companies. There’s Bar Works Inc, which was registered in Delaware on 24 July 2015, with two branches, one in California (registered 16 March 2017) and one in New York (registered 27 October 2015). A search on Open Corporates reveals plenty more “Bar Works” companies:
Bar Works has appeared in three posts on REDD-Monitor. The first post takes a look at the Bar Works investment and a related UK-based investment, Pod Works:
The second post looks at Heron Global Partners, one of the companies offering investments in Bar Works:
And the third post features a response from Six and Flow, the company that ran Heron Global Partners’ marketing campaign. The director of Six and Flow, Richard Wood, admitted that at least parts of the marketing campaign were “potentially misleading”. He said that after Heron Global Partners had raised more than £10 million:
Bar Works: Bomb-proof business model or Ponzi scheme?
A large number of companies are offering investments in Bar Works. Bar Works produced a video explaining how the investment is supposed to work:
So the minimum investment is US$25,000, and investors receive monthly returns – as this screenshot from Bar Works USA, one of the UK-based companies flogging investments in Bar Works illustrates:
It’s always good to remind ourselves what Offshore Alert’s David Marchant has to say about investment schemes that show this sort of return:
As an investigative reporter, the easiest financial crime for me to detect is a Ponzi scheme. Any investment scheme with a performance chart that is essentially a diagonal line trending upwards with little or no meaningful variation over many months is a Ponzi scheme and, as such, doomed to failure.
Bar Work’s video tell us that,
The directors at Bar Works have had “what if” scenario analyses carried out by auditors to ensure the robustness of the model. They played out eventualities such as pricing and location, competition, global financial meltdown, property crash, property boom, and yes, even Trump as President. The end result was what the auditors referred to as a “bomb-proof business model” where investors would always be paid and the company will maintain cash positivity even when the White House becomes home to the Donald.
I’ve written to Bar Works and asked them for a copy of auditors’ reports. But I’m not holding my breath.
Difficulties with banking facilities
It seems the “bomb-proof business model” is facing banking problems. In April 2017, Franklin Kinard, Bar Works’ Managing Director, sent the following message to investors:
Over recent months, Bar Works has been facing difficulties with its banking facilities. This has resulted from the large and growing volume of transactions coupled with the broad international client base we have built up.
The result of this has been a significant increase in banking costs which has made it unviable to continue with this method of banking.
We have taken the step to change this now. However, with our new banking partners we are experiencing limitations to the size of daily transactions, volume of transactions and limitations of which countries we can send payments. We realize it is never a good time to change banking facilities and it will inevitably lead to some delays in payments and administration errors however in the medium term it will be worth the investment.
To try to minimize disruption we will phase the change over of our banking facilities which will mean we will send rents/payments in batches as the new accounts are set up with our banking provider. Initially this only relates to outgoing payments.
We are doing all we can to minimize this disruption and we really appreciate your patience and the faith you have put in Bar Works.
Great piece Chris
Having banking problems makes no sense as no bank will restrict banking operations for a proper company they have carried out due diligence on UNLESS there is a problem. Why would they, it’s not in their interests nor the customers. And within all of this, the company is supposed to be great and as they’ve told everyone, their Auditors have said the firm is ‘bomb proof’. So who puts restrictions on such a firm? Nobody. Plus, assume a new potential bank did put restrictions on the account , why open an account there, why not take your first class bomb proof company to another bank, many would love to open a banking relationship with such a firm.
So this is the first of the excuses, get ready for more till all the firms close down and everyone connected to them tries to scarper.
As for other excuses, Chris has hit the nail on the head – nobody is going to see the Auditors report saying the firm is ‘bullet proof’ which is strange as don’t you think it would be in the company’s interests to release it? Wouldn’t it make the company look great?
I wonder if Richard Wood of Six and Flow is proud of his firm helping to financial destroy all the clients he helped garner for this ridiculous investment opportunity. Didn’t he bother to check on who he was doing business with? Didn’t the name Rennick Haddow come up? If so wasn’t he shocked by his past history of ripping off 1,000s of investors via selling them worthless investment deals that were DESIGNED to be worthless? No doubt Mr Wood will use the Manuel from Faulty Towers excuse – I know nothing.
Investors, if you don’t call in the lawyers now, you have zero chance. If you delay, you will pay the price in the future.
@Sam, you make some great points. The only one I would take issue with is the appointment of a lawyer. It just doesn’t work and all it does is make investors poorer. Bar Works and the people involved would just drag out the process. Haddow has done this before many times.
A private investigator based in New York would be much better value for money. Have you noticed how there are very few photos of Haddow ? He likes to keep a low profile.
A local PI would be able to find the key people at their homes and knock on their doors, speak to their neighbours and generally make a right nuisance of himself. All he has to do is to let them know that he will stop as soon as his clients are refunded. That is cheaper and stands a better chance of success.
Before anyone spends any money I think they ought to understand why there is this banking issue. Is the bank forcing a closure of the account, or have they frozen the account out of concern that it is a scam or at the request of an investigating authority ? or is there not a banking issue at all and BW has simply run out of money ? No point in paying a PI if there isn’t any money left.
I’m sceptical about the explanation that BW has voluntarily chosen to switch banks. I think there is probably another reason for the payments being stopped.
Bar Works delayed rents for the month of May2017, There is an email Franklin Kinard, this time delay is due to construction contractors, in April the reason given for delay was banking restructuring…
Hope Bar Works will back with resolution to their global clients who has put their life earning on this investment, the product is support by global real state consultants …
@ Kamal. You need to join the other discussion to see how things are progressing
http://redd-monitor.org/2017/01/17/bar-works-the-return-of-renwick-haddow/#comment-2575807
Is there any investors forum available which we can all join and hire a lawyer jointly?
@ Ashok- please see my post earlier to Kamal. Click on the link to the other forum for alot more information
We are investors of barworks not received a payment for 4 months we are unable to reach Nancy or anyone in barworks. No response to the email either. The agent Suman is not responding either
Any one in Dubai invested in Barworks through Square Yards. Please get in touch with me. [email protected].
It was agreed by Square Yards that they have made a wrong product to promote such as (Barworks). Investors who have invested in Barworks deal. please contact me @ [email protected] to make a collective approach.
Guys,
Some investors already took barWorks to court in new york and even in Florida. Are any of you interested to join a group and we open a case together?? I have been in touch with the lawyer that is responsible for the lawsuit against BarWorks and he suggested to be a group. Anyone interested please contact me on [email protected]