Christian Church or Commercial Cult?

​During the course of our research into the Plymouth Brethren, we have raked and scraped our way through companies house, following thread after thread to bring to life the inner business workings of the brethren members. We have found circa 1700 companies listed on companies house that have brethren members as directors, we have found a further 200 that are dormant. It is our estimate that there are over 2,000 companies registered in the UK. If you look at the male 18-65 demographic for the PBCC in the UK, we suspect this equates to one registered company for every two members!

The history of how the brethren became so reliant on their own companies, goes back to the leadership of James Taylor Jnr in the 1960's, when the members were instructed to reduce their contact with non brethren "worldy" people, not to break bread with non brethren and not to attend university. All these activities were seen as morally corrupting. This led to many brethren member having to run their own businesses. This has escalated under the last two leaders, Bruce D Hales and his father John S Hales. The focus on commercial activities has become more and more prominent. Brethren members who run successful enterprises are held in high esteem by the leadership. We question if the church has morphed into a commercial enterprise?

There appears to be a consistent approach on how a company is structured by the brethren community. The categories we looked at show a pattern for a family business, a school related business, a wider brethren or church company set up and finally a construction business for the building of meeting halls.

Family Business
The initial company is established by the founder, as the business grows and is successful, then a Holdings company is established with all family members added. Sons are added to both the initial company and to the Holdings company, wives and daughters are only added to the Holdings company. Each son will establish their own limited company, sometimes accompanied by their wife. This pattern is repeated through the generations. Occasionally as a daughter marries a member of another family, the son may stay with his own family business or transfer to his wife's family business. The benefit to structuring this way would mean all the profits are shared between the male members and then via the holdings company. It is very tax efficient as it minimises tax through the holding company via the shareholders (the wives who do not work for the company).

School Related Business
Where there is a OneSchool Global for the local brethren community (currently 24 schools in the UK), limited companies are formed and ran by the local brethren businessmen. These company usually will list four to six local experienced brethren businessmen as directors, they then operate a trading arm, with a brethren only food retail outlet for members, usually under the "Campus & Co" banner. The retail operation for Campus & Co globally is led by UBT (Universal Business Team), a weekly news bulletin for Campus & Co is shared each week to members. 
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These trading companies are set up as non-profits, with all profits then going into the local OneSchool Global, which in turn is a registered charity. This is a very tax efficient way of operating and makes total sense. The business therefore is highly unlikely to pay any tax. The other smart approach to this structure means that the local brethren have a way of purchasing products made by the local & wider brethren business company, thus ensuring not only are their schools profiting then their businesses also profit. It is a strong, tax efficient community model.

These companies usually own/hold the assets of the school building etc. Therefore the OneSchool Charity are only responsible for the running of the school. 

​Wider Brethren/Church Business 
​In a similar manner to the school related company structure, the brethren have the need for both Church based businesses and companies which can centrally benefit the wider brethren business community. An example would be Universal Business Team (UBT), by setting up a central business to advise with business support & central buying, then all the businesses benefit. The profits from UBT also go into the OneSchool Global pot! Again leaving UBT to act as a non profit if agreed by the wider brethren business group. The same example could be given for a church business like the Bible & Gospel Trust, where all the profit are churned back into the brethren community via the church. This approach is again the most tax efficient way of supporting the businesses, the schools & the church.

Construction Business
Following a similar pattern the construction businesses are set up to build, develop & maintain the gospel halls (churches). The construction of a new hall would require a number of local brethren businesses to come together to raise funds through other brethren members, by then utilising their own businesses they can provide both the materials & labour on a construction project. The other benefit is as the halls are set up as charities they basically have a licence to charge the charity as they best see fit from a tax perspective. Another area where utilising the local businesses on projects with new or existing halls means that once they have planning permission that they can then see if they can get change of use on the old hall site to develop at a profit. Overall tax efficiencies on construction & development must be very profitable for brethren companies and members.

Commercial Ownership
Under the leadership of Bruce Hales the Plymouth Brethren Church and its member have becoming extremely focused on commercial activities, tax efficiencies and it could be argued that the focus has switched from church to commercialism. It would be interesting to understand who actually owns the Halls & the Schools, it has been alleged by ex members that Bruce Hales is as an honorary trustee for each Gospel Hall Trust and that he is also the ultimate owner of all the meeting rooms.
We have also been informed that when there is a change of directors within a business, that agreements are being signed which agree that each shareholder forfeits their right to a share of the business, if they leave the Plymouth Brethren Church. At best only getting paid a small amount in comparison to the actual worth of the business. If this is correct then it would question who actually owns the business? Is it the member or is it actually the church?

The Ecosystem & Global Funding Team (GFT)
One of the goals of leader Bruce Hales is to create a system which is not reliant on "worldy"/"non brethren", what the leadership call their Ecosystem. The path to creating this ecosystem is owned by the Global Funding Team, the responsibilities of the GFT is to plan the funding of schools & general support funds. It is also responsible for the development of an investment portfolio under the Vision Growth/Vision Accelerator programme. The aim to build an endowment fund, where the annual returns fund the future brethren spending. They have already invested in 9 companies across the globe, including companies in the UK. ​