Further details about the collapse of Douglas & Gordon have been released, revealing that the period of administration for the business has now been extended until 23 February 2025, after which the company will be dissolved.
It comes after Douglas & Gordon called in Grant Thornton as administrator in April last year, but not before its CEO James Evans bought the firm for £515,000 through a new business called Brewham Holdings Ltd; Douglas & Gordon now trades as a new estate agency, with a head office based in Chelsea.
The lettings element of the business was retained by Foxtons before the London-based giant sold the agency to Evans in January 2022.
The latest report from Grant Thornton, which will receive up to £750,000 in fees, offers an update on the struggles the business faced. It includes details of 154 unsecured creditors, excluding employees, who have made claims totalling more than £1m – they are unlikely to receive payment.
Landlords of the 12 offices leased by Douglas and Gordon Ltd are also out of pocket and unlikely to receive the outstanding rent they are owed.
In addition, HMRC is owed £581,000.
Read the latest Grant Thornton report here.
750K in fees for the administrator to conclude the company was bankrupt nice work if you can get it! So if the company had no assets how were they paid their fee? Now let me guess sell off everything up to and including 750K and oops sorry there’s no money left now. Cheers!
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I was a creditor in such a situation for another company which went into a voluntary administration.
The administrators fees totalled more than the original outstanding debt. They got paid and the creditors received the square root of nothing. The company then rose out of the ashes to crash and burn two years later with even greater debts.
Needless to say that the managing director was not a very nice person (the real words I want to use would be starred out or would get the post deleted). He managed to line his pockets with other people’s money and got away scot-free!
To my mind though, worse than his betrayal was the conduct of the administration. Money was siphoned off by the administrators at £250 plus VAT per hour plus disbursements to deal with the mess. Yes, they should get paid a fee, but it is absolutely outrageous that this situation is considered to be legal!
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