Today the administrator of A1GP held a 2 hour meeting with the creditors of which only about 17 turned up.
The outcome of the meeting was to appoint a Creditors Committee comprising of five – A1Holdings, URT, Ferrari, Pankl and Dr.Trafford – which will meet next week under the chair of the administrator Tim Bramston.
The administrator explained that he was unable to put an offer before them today due to not yet able to recover all the assets.
He will need to come to an agreement with D.O.T before this can be done.
His aim is to sell A1GP as a going concern but didn’t say if he had an offer.
The creditors committee’s job is to come up with an acceptable proposition which is fair to all creditors.
It is looking as though it could be at least 5 weeks and maybe longer before any solution may be found.
If no solution is found then it would return to the High Court where it is almost certain A1GP would be wound up and assets sold off for the creditors.
We have also found out that RAB Capital still hold their 80% holding in A1GP but that they offered a way out of the financial problems with a £10m input if A1GP matched it – the offer was turned down probably because A1GP couldn’t raise the £10m.
On the confusion over the car safety updates we have learnt that when the original deal with Ferrari for the season 4 car was completed the FiA was informed it was a 3 year car and they gave permission for it to complete this cycle before carrying out the upgrades. Subsequently this cycle was changed to a 6 year one which annoyed the FiA who then reversed their offer and insisted that the upgrades should be carried out prior to season five. It seems A1GP approached the FiA for permission to delay this until after Surfers Paradise, Australia, and you can guess what the answer was “F.O.”.
The total amount owed by A1GP is £100m with A1GP a creditor of £85m which is why they are on the creditors committee.
If by now you are thinking “what a mess” you are right.
We are hoping to be able to fill you in more next week.
Update 06/11/2009
A1 Grand Prix Operations, which controlled the logistical side of the series, went into administration in September.
Documents from the administrator Griffins reveal Ferrari is A1GP Operations’ biggest external creditor, heading a list of around 250 companies and individuals.
In total, A1GP Operations owes almost £100m to its creditors, although £85m of that is to British Virgin Islands-based parent company, A1 Holdings. According to Griffins, the total owed is expected to rise “as many claims are yet to be received”.
[source: thisislondon.co.uk]
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- Latest A1GP Position Update 2
Following our earlier story, about the Creditors Meeting held last Friday 30th October 2009, the planned meeting for this week between the 5 nominated Creditors Committee has occurred......
This may be crazy, but is there no way of getting fans from around the to get involved by donating an amount to A1GP ( fund of some sort ) to help them temporarily out of the shit. I think that the AiGP concept is really great and would hate to see it dissapear. If millions of people around the world gave a dollar or 2 it could add up to quite a lot. Call us armchair spectators if you like just paying for what we love.
From crazymadfan in South Africa,
Barry Theron.
We have not seen any accounts so figures are ball park figures and when it says A1GP is a creditor of A1GP it is because money was put into the series to keep it going just like you taking money from one bank account to clear a debt in another.
Do you mean the total amount owed by A1GP Operations is 100m with A1GP Holdings a creditor of 85m ?? Or how else should I read this?