Woe for training firm's shareholders
Investors in ailing Carter & Carter will be left with nothing after the training firm’s fall into administration, the company said today.
The firm – which was rocked by the death of its founder and chief executive Phillip Carter in a helicopter accident last May – said its market listing would be cancelled next Tuesday.
Deloitte & Touche were called in as joint administrators last week after banks pulled the plug on an attempted restructuring of the business, which has been hit by a series of profits warnings.
The company said: “The joint administrators do not expect that any value will be returned to the company’s shareholders out of the administration.”
Shares in the firm were suspended in October after falling to a fraction of the record 1273p seen last year. The company is now worth just £34.3m (€43.6m), compared to its £530m (€674m) peak.
The Nottinghamshire-based company, which has around 2,100 staff, trains car mechanics as well as providing other vocational training for sectors including retail, manufacturing and sport.
It has clients including government departments and the Learning and Skills Council, but now faces being broken up.
Carter & Carter added: “The joint administrators are working with the company’s management team, the Learning and Skills Council, the Department for Work and Pensions and other interested parties to secure the ongoing survival of the group’s businesses.”
Mr Carter and his son Andrew, 17, were among four people killed in a helicopter crash as they were flying home after watching Chelsea’s Champions League semi-final defeat at Liverpool last May.
The firm’s revenues failed to meet expectations in the second half of the year to July 31 as take-up from employers on LSC and DWP training programmes proved slower than originally anticipated.
And in November the position grew worse after it revealed that its apprentice learner records were of “insufficient quality” to support its funding claims to the LSC.
Carter & Carter also uncovered the falsification of documentation on a programme it was running in the North East.
It called in forensic accountants to comb through the books, leaving the last set of accounts for the 12 months to July 31 unfinalised until the investigations were completed.
