Malvern Group has appointed KPMG as an administrator for its travel businesses, including Super Break and LateRooms, a day after shutting them down as one of its main shareholders defaulted on debt repayments, the audit firm said on Friday, Reuters reported. Malvern Group is partly owned by Indian tour operator Cox & Kings Ltd, which is under severe financial stress and has defaulted on debt repayments. Malvern Group’s website said forthcoming bookings had been cancelled, while customers currently on tours may be asked to pay again by the hotels.
Olaide Olasupo received an unexpected email on Monday evening. He was not to go to his classes at GSM London the following morning because the college would be going into administration, the Financial Times reported. The business student had one project left to submit before completing his degree programme when the news came that GSM London, one of England’s largest privately owned higher education providers, would cease teaching. Now he is searching for another institution that will recognise his coursework and allow him to complete his studies. “This was four years of my life.
Company insolvencies hit a five-year high in the second quarter of this year, according to the Insolvency Service of England and Wales, CRN reported. Underlying corporate insolvencies totalled 4,321 for the three-month period ending in June, which represented a 2.6 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase and an 11.9 per cent jump on the same period last year. This is the highest underlying level of insolvencies in any quarter since Q1 2014, the authority said.
Can the company behind Aston Martin avoid tapping its shareholders? Yes, if everything goes to plan. The snag is that Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings Plc is proving increasingly accident prone, a Bloomberg View reported. Shares in the sports car maker fell as much as 22% on Wednesday. That’s all too familiar. The stock dropped 26% and 18% on consecutive days last week. The group is suffering from weak orders in Europe even as sales rise in the U.S. and Asia. A partner has defaulted on an intellectual property deal, costing 19 million pounds ($23.1 million).
Businesses that fail to adapt to climate change will go bust, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said on Wednesday, but others will be able to profit handsomely from funding green investment, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "Companies that don't adapt - including companies in the financial system - will go bankrupt without question. (But) there will be great fortunes made along this path aligned with what society wants," Carney told Channel 4 News.
Shares in British shopping centre operator Intu sank more than 21% on Wednesday after reporting a fall in first-half net rental income on Wednesday, the latest sign of weakness in a struggling British retail sector, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Intu, which scrapped its dividend earlier this year and changed management after two failed takeover bids, said it was adopting a new five-year strategy to reshape its business and focus on fixing its balance sheet.
GSM London, one of England’s largest privately owned higher education providers, has gone into administration after failing to find a buyer, leaving more than 3,500 students uncertain about where they will complete their studies, the Financial Times reported. The board of the institution, formerly known as Greenwich School of Management, appointed two insolvency practitioners from the accountancy firm BDO on Wednesday, and said teaching would cease on its two campuses in Greenwich and Greenford, in north-west London, at the end of September.
Factory gates shutting for the last time; a vast steelworks teetering on bankruptcy; for sale signs hoisted over some of the grandest names in British industry, the Financial Times reported. Scenes like these that scarred communities in decades past are now coming back to haunt the UK, following a run of troubling developments at some of the country’s largest manufacturers that have left thousands of jobs on the line.
UK company insolvencies rose to a five-year high in the second quarter of this year, in a possible sign of Brexit-related political uncertainty weighing on businesses, the Financial Times reported. Underlying corporate insolvencies rose 2.6 per cent from the first to the second quarter of the year, and are 12 per cent higher than the same period last year, according to the Insolvency Service, a government agency. The figures relate to the second quarter, when Brexit was delayed and Boris Johnson emerged as the frontrunner to replace prime minister Theresa May.
The number of insolvent companies in England and Wales hit its highest in more than five years in the second quarter of 2019, according to data on Tuesday that showed businesses under rising financial pressure as Brexit nears, Reuters reported. The Insolvency Service, a government agency, said 4,321 companies entered insolvency in the April-June period on an underlying basis, excluding bulk closures of personal service companies. This was up from 4,213 in the first quarter and marked the largest total since early 2014.