Selling the assets but not the debts..
Discussion
A company that owes me some money has gone into administration.
30 days beforehand the assets were sold to another company for a substantial sum.. of course the purchasing company has the same directors, same line of business etc. And so, as you'd expect, with no assets the original company can't service its debts and has been placed into administration.
They're something like £4m in the hole. Interestingly the statement of affairs does not detail where the purchase price (also about £4m) went..
To my knowledge, they've done this twice before. Amazing how companies can get away with this, really. Given the sums involved I can't believe HMRC just seem to write the amounts off and forget about it. Do they?
I feel I should raise the issue of the £4m or so somewhere.. but I'll probably just chalk this one down to experience.
30 days beforehand the assets were sold to another company for a substantial sum.. of course the purchasing company has the same directors, same line of business etc. And so, as you'd expect, with no assets the original company can't service its debts and has been placed into administration.
They're something like £4m in the hole. Interestingly the statement of affairs does not detail where the purchase price (also about £4m) went..
To my knowledge, they've done this twice before. Amazing how companies can get away with this, really. Given the sums involved I can't believe HMRC just seem to write the amounts off and forget about it. Do they?
I feel I should raise the issue of the £4m or so somewhere.. but I'll probably just chalk this one down to experience.
rsjamesuk28 said:
I will wait for someone like Eric to answer this in more detail, but stinks of Phoenix trading to me.
It is ... hard to do anything about. I was mis-sold advertising a few years ago. They were selling plasma adverts in local cinema/theatres ... Paid them for the service and the advert looked good. Shame that they had not sold to the cinemas etc etc ..By the time I found out they had vanished owning loads and loads. Located their new company and contacted them... Nothing .. Tried again ... nothing ... Called Trading Stadards and the Police .. Nothing .. Tried Trading Standards again ... nothing
It just so happened that I was up in Lancashire and the small detour via the registered office ... Very nice company secratary gave me the addresses of the main directors
Refunded quite quickly once the baseball bat was brought into play
john_p said:
A company that owes me some money has gone into administration.
30 days beforehand the assets were sold to another company for a substantial sum.. of course the purchasing company has the same directors, same line of business etc. And so, as you'd expect, with no assets the original company can't service its debts and has been placed into administration.
They're something like £4m in the hole. Interestingly the statement of affairs does not detail where the purchase price (also about £4m) went..
To my knowledge, they've done this twice before. Amazing how companies can get away with this, really. Given the sums involved I can't believe HMRC just seem to write the amounts off and forget about it. Do they?
I feel I should raise the issue of the £4m or so somewhere.. but I'll probably just chalk this one down to experience.
I've heard fo this happening a few times. Very suitable if teh original company has a large claimant chasing them in court, but some people simply use it to dump debts out of a company that they've asset stripped. Keep us posted on how you get on!30 days beforehand the assets were sold to another company for a substantial sum.. of course the purchasing company has the same directors, same line of business etc. And so, as you'd expect, with no assets the original company can't service its debts and has been placed into administration.
They're something like £4m in the hole. Interestingly the statement of affairs does not detail where the purchase price (also about £4m) went..
To my knowledge, they've done this twice before. Amazing how companies can get away with this, really. Given the sums involved I can't believe HMRC just seem to write the amounts off and forget about it. Do they?
I feel I should raise the issue of the £4m or so somewhere.. but I'll probably just chalk this one down to experience.
plasticpig said:
If the directors have not gone through the motions correctly then they may be personally liable to the creditiors. Its very amateurish to transfer assests 30 days beforehand. In a properly structured setup the company that trades owns a minimum of assets in the first place.
In fact only 14 days elapsed between the sale of assets and book debts and the debenture holder appointing an administrator.. although this was triggered by the debenture holder (presumably also a shareholder) "withdrawing support" prior to the sale.john_p said:
plasticpig said:
If the directors have not gone through the motions correctly then they may be personally liable to the creditiors. Its very amateurish to transfer assests 30 days beforehand. In a properly structured setup the company that trades owns a minimum of assets in the first place.
In fact only 14 days elapsed between the sale of assets and book debts and the debenture holder appointing an administrator.. although this was triggered by the debenture holder (presumably also a shareholder) "withdrawing support" prior to the sale.Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff