Accountancy group Vantis may itself face corporate restructuring or insolvency after its board flagged up uncertainty that the firm can continue trading, leading its shares to be suspended from the junior market.
Trouble at the firm, which specialises in corporate restructuring and insolvency, hinges on a massive unpaid fees bill from its work on Stanford International Bank, as well as the impact of the recession on its business advisory and tax arm.
Chief executive Paul Jackson and head of corporate restructuring Nigel Hamilton-Smith, who worked on Vantis's most high-profile case, the liquidation of alleged Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford's Antiguan bank, resigned from the firm's board on Saturday. They are still working for the firm on day-to-day business, Vantis said.
Vantis has yet to receive a penny of the multi-million-pound fees it is owed for its liquidation work on Stanford International Bank.
It was hit with further bad news last week when a high court judge in Antigua ordered the firm to be removed from its position as liquidator on the Stanford case after complaints from a creditor.
Vantis's finance director, Steve Smith, is taking over “all executive responsibilities” at the firm until a new chief executive is identified, the firm said.
It added that it was still in discussions about selling “certain of the company's assets” and talking to potential investors as well as its lenders, who include Lloyds TSB, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, about a rescue package
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