Grant Thornton, the appointed administrators for GHA Coaches, have released a progress report revealing that unsecured creditors may get less than 3% of what they are owed by the defunct operator.
A total of £1.4m was raised in four online auctions of GHA assets, but after costs and payments to finance companies, the net funds raised stood at £866,839. Included in these figures were realisations in respect of financed vehicles (£335,550). Payments to finance companies released £92,000 of equity from these vehicles.
The funds should be sufficient to cover preferential creditors, including redundancy payments, holiday pay and unpaid pension reductions, but unsecured creditors are unlikely to be paid more than 3p per £1 owed.
The company did have trading debtors when the administrators were appointed, totalling £521,000 on the main debtors’ ledger, £199,000 on a separate private hire ledger and £115,000 of insurance debtors. £304,000 of the largest sum has been recovered, along with £136,000 from private hire and £19,000 from insurance.
The company also made fuel rebate claims, though these have been rejected due to poor record keeping and any potential reimbursement is likely to be at least partially offset by historic overclaims by the company, along with the cost of emergency replacement bus services. £122,000 has been received from HMRC for VAT reclaims and no more is expected.
More funds may be brought in from the sale of a premises under dispute, which may belong to a ‘former director’ instead of GHA Coaches.
The costs of the administration to date have been considerable, with the fees from Grant Thornton amounting to £398,428 plus £7,908 expenses, while other expenses including local fees, insurance costs and retained staff costs totalling £375,543.
