Fury at £1.4m for Duo airline bosses Jul 8 2004
By Jon Griffin, Evening Mail
Six directors of collapsed Birmingham airline Duo are sitting on a potential nest egg worth nearly £1.4 million - while more than 300 former staff received just hundreds of pounds in compensation.
Meanwhile 500 trade creditors owed around £14 million will receive just 2.5p in the pound.
The financial revelations came today as a creditors meeting was being held in Solihull to examine the collapse of Duo over two months ago, with debts of more than £40 million and only aircraft spares as assets.
A total of 340 staff were laid off while administrators estimate a shortfall of many millions of pounds facing creditors.
Figures revealed in today's creditors report show that six directors hold 892,857 shares worth, at April 30, 2004, £1,390,472.
The report said that all creditors of the group director company, Duo Group, will be repaid.
But Mr Dawson stressed that the payments to directors may be challenged by the creditors.
Meanwhile former chief executive Peter Spencer holds a total of 267,857 shares, valued at more than £400,000.
The financial revelations were set to spark an outcry at today's creditors meeting where the true extent of the financial collapse of Duo was being revealed.
Bill Dawson, administrator with Deloitte, said the directors' shareholdings were almost certainly set to be challenged by creditors.
"There are a number of areas we have to establish whether these transactions are valid or invalid. This is not something which will happen automatically without a challenge," he said.
But Adrian Kibbler, former head of communications, who is owed more than £7,000 by Duo, said: "Staff and creditors will be shocked by these revelations. "It will be an outrage if they receive next to nothing whilst the directors walk away clutching small fortunes."
Administrators have also received 1,500 potential claims from passengers whilst the vast majority of the 52,000 customers owed an average of £100 each are likely to seek redress from their credit card companies via insurance.
Mr Dawson could not explain why, although all staff had been promised shareholdings, no share options had ever been issued to employees.
