When the meeting finished, Waring was troubled by what he’d heard : he knew full well that liquidators could be made to pay for any mistakes in a winding up. It was the bane of their lives. Often, it felt like stepping through a minefield. One false move and a bomb called ‘Plantation’ might go off under him.
As he walked out of Old Square and through the archway gate into Chancery Lane, he was angered at the mess in which he found himself. He wondered whether Ashby would seriously hold everything up with an appeal and if the veiled threat was serious.
When he reached the top of Chancery Lane, he turned into High Holborne, found a red telephone box outside Staple Inn and rang a contact at one of the large law firms. Like him, they spent their time closing down smashed companies, selling off whatever could be salvaged and making people redundant. Out of whatever could be recovered, came their substantial fees. The creditors were thrown the scraps which were left : such was the system.
After explaining his predicament, he asked for a brief audience with the corporate demolition expert then and there. The firm was down the road in Bow Lane. In fifteen minutes, he was in front of a living authority on insolvency who knew everything there was to know about bankruptcy and corporate dismemberments and little about anything else. A junior sat taking notes of what was said while another listened intently to his tale of woe.
After describing his appointment by the Plantation board and how Ashby’s appeal was an unexpected complication, he was told to sit tight for the moment and to let Ashby and Riordan make the running. Plantation’s board had got ahead of itself. Either way, he or they could hardly oppose the appeal, especially if fraud was involved. The board’s decision earlier that day had been without Ashby present. He was the largest shareholder and had the most to lose. As Riordan had said, the mists would clear within a short time when leave to appeal would be given or not.
Until then, Waring should keep his ear to the ground with both Ashby and Plantation’s board. He should get in touch with the lawyers again as soon as the position on the appeal was known.
“But isn’t there something we could be doing in the meantime to bring matters to a head,” asked Waring in frustration.
“It really boils down to Robert Ashby and Plantation’s board reaching a decision together. From what you say, George, there appears to be bad blood between them,” observed the ‘expert’.
After Waring departed, the corporate undertaker felt pleased that a gem of work had fallen to him. Closing down an insurer could occupy him for years – while producing enormous fees.
For the same reason, Waring was feeling disturbed and annoyed about the entire situation. A year earlier, he’d bumped into Roger Grenville at the London Freemasons Lodge in Covent Garden. Grenville had told him in confidence that Plantation was going through a rough time and might not survive. Since then, Waring had waited for the fatal hour to arrive when he could begin closing Plantation down. With the demise of Jim Ashby, the Captain Stratos judgment and his appointment by the board, there were no further impediments in his way until his meeting with Ashby an hour earlier.
Like the lawyers, Waring as liquidator stood to gain a huge amount of fee income over a long period ; he was naturally anxious that nothing should jeopardise that, when he was so close to being confirmed in his position by the Companies Court. Also, the future of his own firm and his position in it were at stake. He was under continual pressure from his other partners to bring in business which had been thin on the ground at the time. There were over three million unemployed and if things didn’t improve, he could be one of them before too long.
There was also the further danger that if Plantation wasn’t quick to appoint him, Hellas Global might bring in their own liquidator and he would lose out entirely. Ashby had mentioned Waring to Grant that day but the Greeks could become impatient and get someone else if events dragged on.
Waring’s firm avoided defunct companies which could be closed down in a few months or a year. These were small beer compared to the large corporate collapses in the financial services markets. That was where the serious insolvency practitioners set their sights.
In recent years, Waring had set himself up as a leading light on insurance insolvency and had given seminars at the LRE (which had sent everyone to sleep).
Whenever an insurance company shut up shop (or was ‘run off’ to use the jargon), it usually had tens of millions sitting in the bank and winding it up could take thirty or forty years. Most of the activity occurred in the first five years when there was a large bankroll sitting inside the company or when pieces of profitable business could be sold off to interested bidders. As policies were renewable, sometimes they went on until the money inside the company ran out, decades later.
Thus, if Plantation was liquidated, the money-go-round for the lawyers, accountants, loss adjusters, brokers and others could continue until they were ready to collect their pensions while the main areas of business were terminated and claims were defended or pursued.
Not only was Waring troubled about whether he could close Plantation down or if someone else would steal the work from under his nose but there were also some very large fish circling nearby. Some of them had let it be known to him that they wanted to buy the company. The longer that any uncertainty continued about the solvency position and the Stratos debt, the more that these potential purchasers might become irritated and perhaps give up altogether. What to do ?