[5] In 2010 the company website identified it as a Newcastle-based provider of motor claims management services on behalf of Southern Rock Insurance.
[11] On 26 February 2013 ownership of Eldon transferred to another group 70% owned by Banks, and received authorisation as a UK insurance broker at the start of April.
[12] According to Eldon's publicly filed accounts, the transfer of ownership was achieved by first issuing almost £2.2m of new shares to the company's ultimate parent, Rock Holdings in a debt for equity deal in February.
[2][14] Just before Christmas 2013, the company's auditors, Baker Tilly LLP resigned, reporting that the relationship had broken-down because "by failing to supply accurate information, management is imposing a limitation of scope on our work."
[15][16] By early 2014 Eldon had launched the Footprint brand to sell van and motorbike policies and Business Choice Direct for commercial insurance.
[20] The following month Eldon sent call centre workers home while it trailed moving their work to South Africa, stating that it was "entering into a period of consultation with up to 200 members of staff across the business".
[1] Eldon is also 50% owner of a joint venture called Vavista, which began trading in 2015 and provides "health and wellbeing programmes" with its insurance policies.
[17] In October 2016 another new company, Somerset Bridge was created to act as managing general agent in order to diversify the panel of insurers Eldon has access to.
[16] Elizabeth (Liz) Bilney, who became a director shortly before Paul Chase-Gardener resigned, was reported to be the CEO in 2017 and was also in charge at Leave.EU during the Brexit campaign.
[25] Brittany Kaiser, a former director of Cambridge Analytica, has said that when she visited Leave.EU HQ in late 2015 she saw Eldon employees staffing a call centre for the campaign.
"[25] In November 2018 the Information Commissioner took enforcement action against Eldon Insurance and Leave.EU for breaches of the Data Protection Act, fining them a total of £135,000.
[31] In 2016 operating profit was £253,000 but restructuring costs led to a loss of approximately £22,000 despite an increase in revenue to £47.3m from improved sales of 299,000 new policies and 90,000 renewals.