Eight-year ban for website director
THE owner of a Merseyside motorbike insurance comparison website has been banned from holding directorships for eight years for taking so much money out of the business it was unable to pay its debts.
Alexis Stone, who traded Bike Insurer Services from premises in Formby, Merseyside, took £500,000 out of the business in the eight weeks before it went into liquidation on August 2, 2011, according to an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
It discovered Mr Stone, who was described as the great grandson of former Labour leader Michael Foot in a 2010 newspaper interview, had decided to put the company into liquidation in May 2011 but delayed this to give him time to convert company assets worth £150,000 into cash.
He then transferred these funds to his American company, including £100,000 paid on the morning the company went into liquidation. The balance was paid a few days later. The Insolvency Service said the business failed with debts of £281,569. Mr Stone, 39, who now lives in the US, has given an undertaking that he will not act as a director of a limited company from May 9 until May 2021.
According to an entry on Linkedin he is based in Los Angeles and runs a business called Feed and Go which sells an automated pet feeder. In the UK this business is registered to an address in Burscough, Lancashire, and Mr Stone is the only director. He also says he sold Biker Insurance Services in February 2011.
Robert Clarke of the Insolvency Service’s investigations team, said: “Directors who decide to put themselves or their other companies ahead of creditors when they know that the company is about to fail show a total disregard for creditors and the business community as a whole.
“The disqualification undertaking agreed in this case sends a clear message to other directors that if they act in a way that is detrimental to the company’s creditors then they will be investigated by the Insolvency Service and removed from the business environment.”
