Accounting firm Vantis exploring partial sale option

Accounting firm Vantis is exploring an option of selling one part of its operations in an effort to reduce its £50 million debt burden.

The AIM-listed accountant owes the sum to a consortium of banks including RBS, Barclays and Lloyds TSB. Bosses are currently meeting with investors to discuss a potential sale. They have not revealed which branch of the business is under discussion.

Vantis’s chief executive, Paul Jackson, said, "We’re working hard on reducing our gearing... Our level of debt is simply not appropriate for our business and we need to reduce it."

A spokesman for Vantis emphasised that negotiations were still at a very early stage and that nothing could be speculated about the potential impact on current shareholders.

The accountants have been placed in tremendous difficulty from their involvement with disgraced financier, Allen Stanford, and their engaging as the liquidators of the Carribean bank at the centre of his $7 billion Ponzi scheme.

Wrangles over the recovery of assets has stretched their resources and they revealed in February that they had not been paid for the work in six months. This has challenged its ability to grow as a going concern.

The company reported a £10.7 million pre-tax loss after the exceptional charges of £12 million. It came after a pre-tax loss of £6.5 million in the last full year, on revenues of £90 million.

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