Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How To Take It Back

by Oliver Bullough

There are several hundred company formation agents – companies that make companies – in the UK (the precise number is unknown – owing to a flaw in Britain’s regulatory architecture, these gatekeepers don’t have to register with anyone before going into business), and theirs is a high-volume, low-margin game. They do charge extra for businesses with particularly rare names – at the time of writing, Formations House had both ‘Apple Ltd’ and ‘Sex Ltd’ for sale at £100,000 each – but their main product is the standard limited company, which costs just £95. You have to sell a lot of those to cover the rent on a building like 29 Harley Street, and Formations House does just that: according to its website, more than 10 million companies have been conjured into existence at the address in the last sixteen years, not just in Britain, but everywhere from Delaware to the Seychelles.