News

CBusiness Holdings directors personally covered liquidation fee, report shows

Finance | Tania Mason | 3 Oct 2012

Steve Round and Bruce Keith, two of the four directors of CBusiness Holdings, the parent of Charity Business, personally forked out £10,000 to put the company into voluntary liquidation earlier this year after it collapsed.

A final report from the liquidators, Gareth Wyn Roberts and Robert Keyes, was filed with Companies House this week.  It summarises what took place between the winding up of the outsourcing agency on 25 January 2012 and the end of winding up on 21 September.

The report reveals that the liquidators were unable to ascertain whether the company owned any assets, and that because of this, claims from the company’s employees and the Redundancy Payments Office could not be met.

It also states that the £10,000 fee that was paid to the liquidators back in January to begin liquidation proceedings was covered by the directors personally, and the fee for the liquidators’ subsequent work, of £12,052, was written off as there was no money in the company.

Bruce Keith was the chair of CBusiness Holdings (the parent company of Charity Business) when it collapsed; Steve Round was the other remaining director.  The other two directors, Charity Business MD Mark Freeman and his wife Val Austin, had terminated their positions on the board in December 2011, just weeks before the company ceased operating.

Gareth Wyn Roberts wrote in the report: “You will recall from my initial report to creditors, that I was advised by two of the directors of the company that the company was only a holding company, and that CBusiness Ltd, trading as Charity Business was the trading entity.

“This has been refuted by two other directors of the company and therefore a substantial amount of my time has been spent investigating this matter and answering creditors’ queries regarding the whereabouts of their property.

“In addition I have also predominately spent my time trying to ascertain which of the companies within the group owned the assets held at the company’s trading address.

“I would advise that following my investigations I have not been able to determine that the company owned any assets and therefore no assets have been realised in this matter.”

Roberts added: “Liquidators have a duty to submit confidential reports to the government’s Disqualification Unit on the conduct of those persons who acted as directors of the company in the three-year period before the liquidation. These investigations are complete and there are no outstanding lines of enquiry.”