Avianta Capital

This article was sent by email to Simon Whittley-Ryan of Avianta Capital Consulting Ltd because it references that company and four other companies he controls. Those companies are Highgrove Osprey PLC, St Helier Capital Management Ltd, Win River Ltd and Win River Developments Ltd. We gave him the opportunity to correct any errors in this article and to provide evidence in support of his corrections. Mr Whittley-Ryan wrote a long and aggressive email in response. Unfortunately he did not specifically address the points below nor provide any evidence to suggest that our comments are inaccurate. We have published extracts from Mr Whittley-Ryan’s response on a separate blog. The link is at the bottom of the page. 

Our Article 

“Two ex-directors at the now defunct airline WOW Air are working on founding a new low-fare airline from the ruins. The new airline is to be called WAB Air with ‘WAB’ standing for ‘We Are Back’. The twosome is working on raising the airline from the ground with investors”. These are extracts from several global newspaper reports on the newly resurrected Icelandic Airline.

That sounds very promising, but when we read the rest of it we became concerned this venture might go into a very sudden nose-dive !

The first 25% shareholding has been taken by parties involved in the original airline. The remaining 75% will be owned by Irish company Avianta Capital Ltd.

Avianta Capital Ltd is owned by Aislinn Whittley-Ryan, daughter of one of the founders of Ryanair.  Mrs Whittley-Ryan runs an equestrian business called Brockingbury Stud Limited so it is surprising that she is now changing tack (no pun intended) and entering into the field of venture finance. Here is a LINK to the register at Companies House.

It may be explained by the fact that she recently married a Mr Simon Whittley, who now describes himself as Simon Whittley-Ryan.  Mr Whittley-Ryan is well known to us as he is the founder and controller of four UK companies which have defaulted on interest payments and repayments of investment capital to investors amounting to millions of pounds.  There is nothing to suggest that Mrs Whittley-Ryan has been involved in her husband’s business dealings.  The registered office of Brockingbury Stud Limited is a residential property which has been used by Simon Whittley-Ryan as the registered office for some of his businesses.

Here is a LINK to a newspaper article on Mr Simon Whittley-Ryan’s company called Highgrove Osprey PLC.

A Winding Up Order was issued over this company on 13^th August 2019. See this LINK

Another of his companies, St Helier Capital Management Ltd, is also the subject of a winding up petition filed by one of our clients.  See this LINK.  One of the supporting creditors is 90 years old. His contract completed its term and Simon Whittley-Ryan still refused to repay him his overdue interest and his capital investment.

Another Safe Or Scam client has signed the necessary court papers to wind up the third Simon Whittley-Ryan company, Win River Developments Ltd, and these will be filed with the court in the coming days.

And finally, to complete the set, his fourth company Win River Ltd has also defaulted on interest and capital repayments to investors. We have been advised that an investor in Win River Ltd intends to file a winding up petition in the coming weeks if he is not paid his debt.

It seems that everything Simon Whittley-Ryan is involved in ends up in payment defaults and potentially significant losses for investors.

Mr Whittley-Ryan has been promising investors there will be an imminent “refinancing” of his companies which will allow them to meet their debt obligations, but he has been promising that for a very long time. Clearly the petitioners owed money by Highgrove Osprey PLC lost patience with his promises.

What makes us think that Simon Whittley-Ryan has anything to do with WAB Air and his wife’s company Avianta Capital Ltd ? Well, he is the sole director of a UK company called Avianta Capital Consulting Ltd and we don’t think that is a coincidence.  We presume the aim of this UK company is to provide “consulting services” to Avianta Capital Limited.  We wonder what those consulting services might consist of bearing in mind the business acumen and ethics of its founder.

The Times newspaper based in London has reported that Simon Whittley-Ryan is certainly involved in his wife’s company.  Read what they have to say on this LINK.

It will be interesting to see whether it is Aislinn Whittley-Ryan or Simon Whittley-Ryan who is the driving force behind the financing of this new airline venture. Considering the history of Mr Whittley-Ryan we are of the opinion that any potential investor should exercise extreme caution.  They would be wise to insist on very stringent controls over how the money is to be used.

If Simon Whittley-Ryan is involved perhaps “We Are Back” Air might be better described as “Watch Your Back” Air.

Extracts from Mr Whittley-Ryan’s response can be viewed HERE