Small Business Debt Recovery / Collection News

Creditors of property entrepreneur Roy Thomas have accepted £1.34 for every £100 they are owed from the collapse of Swansea based RT Properties.

They accepted the terms of his Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in a private creditors’ meeting in Swansea earlier this month. The offer, an improved one from last months 1p for every £4 owed was understood to have been improved on the news that RBS was withdrawing itself from the creditors list. RBS are thought to be owed around £6m, with the total debt to RBS being put at £29m

An IVA (a widely used method of dealing with personal debt) became necessary after the collapse of multi-million-pound property business RT Properties. The property portfolio was built up over 40 years and included many prominent buildings in Cardiff and Swansea.

RT Properties portfolio included offices, bars and restaurants including the Dragon Hotel, Marks & Spencer’s city centre store and Ask restaurant in Swansea plus others including the Ha Ha Bar in Cardiff

At a creditors’ meeting in Swansea’s Marriott Hotel last month, creditors were offered about 25p for every £100 owed.

Solicitor Tim Jones, who represented some of the creditors, said: “The whole thing is unfortunate for Mr Thomas, but more so for the small businesses and investors who have lost in the region of £6m of the £32m owed.

Mr Thomas, from Swansea who was the former chairman and owner of Cardiff-based airline Air Wales, who also owned Swansea Airport, had maintained that RT Properties was a successful business. He was not present at the private creditors’ meeting but was represented.

Last month he told the South Wales Evening Post: “It is absolutely devastating because I feel it is an unnecessary situation.”

He told the Evening Post that it had secured 39 lettings in the 24 months leading up to March 2010.

This Small Business Debt Recovery / Debt Collection News post was complied from various news sources and brought to you by Corporate Credit Debt Recovery Ltd (CCDR). If you are concerned about late payments, your customers becoming insolvent, or wish to speak about services such as Outsourced Credit Control or Debtor Tracing in addition to Debt Collection and Commercial Debt Recovery speak to CCDR for a no obligation discussion about how we can reduce your debtor days.