Failing furniture store director disqualified for paying himself first
A DIRECTOR of Cannock furniture retailer Brian James Holdings has been disqualified from being a director for five years for paying himself and friends from dwindling company funds ahead of customers and creditors.
Stephen James Dodd will be disqualified from April 12 following an investigation by the Insolvency Service.
Dodd, 66, of Lichfield, has given an undertaking to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills not to act as a director or in any way manage or control limited companies until April 2018.
Brian James Holdings was incorporated in 1975 and traded from premises in Bridgetown, Cannock, where it employed 19 staff. The company began to experience cash flow difficulties in 2009 and by February 2011 was unable to pay all its debts as they fell due.
The company collapsed into administrative receivership in March 2011, with losses of more than £2.6m, including almost £100,000 due to customers who had paid for furniture which they never received.
The investigation found that in the six weeks prior to this, at a time when the company was failing to pay suppliers and when there was a significant risk that customers who had paid deposits would not receive their furniture, Dodd paid £53,864 from the company account to himself and his friends.
These payments to Dodd included wage arrears and advance holiday pay at a rate of more than double his previous salary.
Commenting on the disqualification, Robert Clarke, head of company investigations, Birmingham, within The Insolvency Service, said: “Directors who put their own personal financial interests above those of customers and creditors damage confidence in doing business and are corrosive to the health of the local economy.
“This ban should serve as a warning to other directors tempted to help themselves first; you have a duty to your creditors and if you neglect this duty you could be investigated by the Insolvency Service and removed from the business environment.”
