Airtours sues former owners of Aspro
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.AIRTOURS, the second-largest holiday company in the UK, is suing the former owners of Aspro Travel, the Cardiff-based company it bought for pounds 20m last June.
The company yesterday issued a formal notice to the Stock Exchange, following reports in the weekend press.
It said: 'Airtours has commenced proceedings against George, Christopher and Dimitrios Asprou, the former owners of 90 per cent of the issued share capital of Aspro Travel.'
The claim, it added, was being made on 'the grounds of fraudulent misrepresentation at the time of the acquisition of the trading position of Aspro and its wholly owned subsidiary, Inter European Airways.'
Airtours is also claiming against all of the former shareholders of Aspro under warranties and representations contained in the purchase agreement.
Initial investigations, carried out by independent accountants, estimate the claim to be pounds 9.8m.
Grant Thornton, chartered accountants and auditors to Airtours, acted for the company when it bought Aspro. Touche Ross handled the independent investigation.
Airtours' statement yesterday followed its move last week to obtain a freezing order on pounds 12.6m of interest- bearing loan notes paid to the three Asprou brothers.
The City was wrongfooted by yesterday's events. Airtours shares fell 13p to 540p.
Some analysts criticised the way in which Airtours chose to disclose the problems with Aspro. One said: 'They should have spelt it out in the annual report and accounts.'
Airtours said its accounts for the year to September 1993 fully reflected the shortfall against the level of profits previously expected from the acquisition.
It does not say what the shortfall was, but two notes in the report allude to problems at Aspro.
Note 1 on page 28 shows that Aspro made a profit of only pounds 6,000 in July, August and September last year - the peak months for travel companies. Note 10 on page 34 shows that Aspro lost pounds 9.44m in the previous eight months.
It is understood that Airtours was expecting Aspro to produce pounds 4m of profits for 1992/3.
Airtours declined to comment on this but said that the earnings and assets of the current financial year would not be hit.
(Photograph omitted)
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments