Ongoing Issues26 Jun 2020 07:07
Board room bust-up at Amigo
UPDATE – 17 June
At the General Meeting held today, the resolutions to remove the current board and substitute two new directors as proposed by James Banamor were all defeated by a large majority, about 9:1.
So the current board remains.
UPDATE – 1 June
On 1 June 202, Amigo made two announcements:
the FCA has started an investigation into Amigo’s creditworthiness assessments since 2018; and
Amigo has asked for a court injunction to prevent Richmond Group from voting to replace the board at the vote which is being held on 17 June. Richmond Group is owned by James Benamor and has more than 60% of the shares.
The previous week Amigo had said:
We have significantly increased our staffing and recently agreed a Voluntary Requirement with the FCA to work through and reach a decision, before the end of June 2020, on a backlog of complaints which have arisen principally in 2020. Each complaint will be assessed on a case by case basis to ensure fair outcomes for our customers.
it had a cash balance of over £115 million as at 25 May 2020.
UPDATE – 28 April
On 28 April 2020, James Benamor published another blog that called for the removal of the entire Amigo board. saying:
Today, I have requested a shareholder vote to be held as soon as possible on the subject of removal of the current board. This vote will obviously take place remotely.
And he also proposes his nominations for CEO and Chair, saying:
A key responsibilities of the new board of Amigo will be to investigate, provide evidence to the regulator on, and in all likelihood take litigation action against, the outgoing board members. It is therefore absolutely not acceptable for the outgoing board to be involved in selecting their replacements.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE – 4 March
On 4 March 2020 the founder and majority shareholder of Amigo, James Benamor, resigned from the board which he had only rejoined in December.
In the evening he published a blog saying that the company was “committing slow motion suicide”.
Benamor said the board needed to choose between challenging recent FOS decisions on affordability complaints in court by Judicial Review or accept that “almost all their loans had been made irresponsibly”, stop lending and go into administration.
When he came back onto the board, he says he personally audited the most recently lent and refunded loans. And he found that:
Amigo had, for six months, been lending almost entirely in a way that matched their own complaints team’s definition of ‘irresponsible’.
He described the company as being a:
cash cow for consultants, lawyers and suits, all of whom had an interest in keeping the gravy train running for as long as possible, but no interest in the company being honest with shareholders or customers about the situation it was in.
and said he could no longer remain on the board.
Amigo has today issued a Response to statement by James Benamor disagreeing with much
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