some developments in uk today regarding the payphone business, touted in quarterly report of 16 march as a source of revenues and cash flow for the coming 12 months.
all the payphone businesses in uk were today placed in liquidation.
the meeting was chaired by wettreich, who had signed papers on 3 march convening the meeting. the sole purpose of the meeting was to liquidate the companies. how come, 13 days later, the payphone businesses are going to provide revenues and cash flow?
the uk holding company for camelot, now called constable group plc (it used to be called meteor technology plc) shows some 900,000 pounds sterling of its assets as being money due to it from the payphone companies. the total book value of the assets of the payphone companies was shown as 168,000 sterling. not quite enough to pay constable, let alone the other creditors - and there are many of them.
wettreich told the meeting that cash receipts from the payphone businesses were 40,000 sterling in february 1998, down by 60% compared with prior months.
the insolvency practitioner appointed at the meeting referred to 'peculiar circumstances' surrounding the liquidation application, and several times spoke of the lack of information received from wettreich.
wettreich is leaving for usa, but supposed to be back in uk in two weeks to answer questions about the collapse of the payphones businesses.
questions were also raised about the uk stockbroking business controlled by wettreich, alexander mark, but were not directly relevant to today's meeting. |
