RE: Just wait3 Aug 2019 16:34
By way of background this is from The Times 14 October 2018 indicating that £20M was offered for Unilad, even in its distressed condition.
Presumably it would have gone for more had the bidding process continued, but that could have meant having to operate the business for longer whilst in administration - tricky if you are at odds with management.
Surprise, the total debts, after everyone had come out of the woodwork, amounted to in the region of £17M, which is what Ladbible paid - being £12M plus the £5M debt they had bought from AP.
I think the administrators are hoping to pay out around 80% following deduction of their fees @ £450.00 per hour etc. etc..
It is clear from the figures that Ladbible were operated in a much more financially efficient manner, however.
Hopefully the days of the £10,000 pool tables are long gone.
"Shareholders of the stricken viral publisher Unilad are exploring a legal bid to halt a sale of the business by the administrator, claiming that a “proper process . . . [has] not been undertaken”.
Manchester-based Unilad, which publishes videos and articles on Facebook and other social media, fell into administration this month with debts of more than £9m, including £1.5m owed to HM Revenue & Customs.
It looks set to be acquired in a cut-price deal by arch-rival Ladbible — which is 30%-owned by the boohoo.com fashion tycoon Mahmud Kamani — with hundreds of jobs on the line. It was reported last week that Ladbible's bid for Unilad was £12.5m, though a source close to Ladbible said that figure was “completely wrong” and the true bid was higher.
A consortium led by Unilad’s existing financial backer, the private equity firm Linton Capital, claimed to have offered the administrator a total of £20m for the business. Another bidder said it had made a £20m offer that was snubbed.
Unilad’s administrator, Leonard Curtis, informed bidders it had entered exclusivity talks with one party last week.
Unilad shareholders and creditors — including chief executive Liam Harrington — claim Leonard Curtis rejected the £20m bids “without reasonable justification or explanation”, so were not “acting in accordance with their duties to the creditors”.
Unilad and Ladbible are the biggest global publishers on Facebook, with tens of millions of followers between them. The two publishers share a founder, Alex Partridge, although he is no longer involved with either business. Partridge sold £5m of Unilad’s debt to Ladbible prior to the administration, which gave Ladbible leverage in the takeover talks.
Harrington, 27, alleged that Ladbible had funded the administration process and picked the administrator in a bid to secure a “quick pre-pack sale”. He added that the process “smells wrong”.
Ladbible, which last week reported pre-tax profits of £3.7m on sales of £15.3m last year, declined to comment. Leonard Curtis did not respond to requests for comment."
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