Addison Global owed creditors £17m including £2m Gibraltar tax bill
Ordinary creditors to go unpaid after operator's five-year investment plan collapsed
Addison Global was expecting up to £70m of investment that never materialised, the Gibraltar Supreme Court has heard.
According to local news channel GBC, the firm’s initial business plan had included shareholder funding of £130m, but it only received £60m.
The court also name-checked Addison Global’s main benefactor: US loan shop mogul Roderick Aycox of Select Management Resources.
Aycox owns more than 600 lending shops in the States, including LoanMax Title Loans.
His backing of Addison Global was made public in 2019 after Manchester United filed an £11m lawsuit against Select Management Resources for failing to pay up to £2m as part of club’s sponsorship deal with the operator.
One off-the-record source close to Addison Global described Aycox as the “villain of the piece” in the demise of the Gibraltar-based start-up.
“We had a five-year plan that was based on sustained investment and we were trending ahead of forecast on that return,” said the source.
“The investment from the shareholder dried up and they could no longer finance the business as promised so we had to look at alternative options, although they never materialised.
“Our largest shareholder decided to pull the plug and we were powerless to do anything about it.”
The Gibraltar government filed two applications with the court to place the firm into liquidation, as EGR Intel reported in March.
The operator owed the government just under £2m in income tax and almost £400,000 in social insurance between 2018 and 2020.
Ordinary creditors owed a total of £16.9m – including B2B suppliers and affiliates – will not be paid.
The court appointed PwC partner Edgar Lavarello as the firm’s liquidator after it lost its Gibraltar and UK licences in February.
All Addison Global staffers have now received their final pay check. Some members of senior management, including CEO Juergen Reutter and COO Patrick Jay, had been aiding PwC in the liquidation process.