成人快手

I disagree. If the executives cannot manage cashflow then they are at fault. It's a basic premise of running a company; cash is king. And to point the finger at a service provider as the primary cause for their own demise is laughable. There are plenty of credit card transaction service providers who would have been happy to take the business and no doubt processed the money exepeditiously. Once again, this is a sad story of failed management. Even when they could see cash was running out, they continued to pursue the order with Boeing for fancy planes they simply could not afford. Isn't it time executives get prosecuted for wreckless decision making that causes staff, agents & customers irreparable financial harm?

"Mr Dalrymple said the funding package was intended to expand the company, when there wasn't much doubt that the only reason it needed an injection of capital was for survival".

Unforgiveable and morally fraudulent to pretend that chairs were plentiful just as the music was about to stop. But what happens to E-Clear. Does a separate team of administrators cause the collapse of that company seeing as they seemingly also cannot pay their creditors (i.e. Globespan)?

Douglas, I thought this was a very good article. The role (and power) of a merchant acquirer is not one that is commonly understood. A change in their sentiment can have a massive impact on any business which is delivering a service at a later date. Well done for delivering insightful analysis on the cause of the failure, very much missing from the rest of the journalism doing the rounds on this.
NB - well-liked - I am sure the cream of Edinburgh society will be missing their well-liked thrice weekly flights to Nice!

This is yet another example of a viable business being wound-up due to the enormous control that credit card merchant providers now hold over the travel industry. This does not mean that the banks are necessarily at fault - they are just protecting themselves against possible losses. But this is a hopeless situation that is totally down to a lack of any up-to-date and valid legislation regarding consumer protection in this area. As a result the Consumer Credit Act is being used as a panacea for the public at large and it just doesn鈥檛 make any sense for banks (and their merchant providers) to be effectively providing full security for all and every travel related transaction. The government needs to act now before many more well run and respected travel companies go the same way.

Douglas,

A Slovakian airline called SkyEurope also suffered the same fate under the same circumstances in June of this year. They claimed that E Clear owed them the odd million as well. Is this another case of regulatory failure? No doubt the regulators will simply shell out more bonuses for themselves as is the custom whenever they are not fit for purpose.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

So what's going on here?

Is Douglas suggesting that E-Clear and Halycon are complicit in Globespan's collapse and might have even planned it deliberately? Seems bizarre to me that these companies are effectively not passing the money they've received in credit card payments especially as they don't seem to be in difficulty themselves.

Still - surely the tax payer owned bank RBS could now step in and make these payments so saving peoples holidays and of course the 800 or so jobs at risk.

Sounds very dodgy. Wonder if this halcyon lot will come in and buy the assets cheap from the administrators?

Similar practices are being reported from major accountancy fierms and banks - give poor advice, watch a company go under, buy it cheap friom administrators - losing the previous owners money, cancelling all debts and gettinga cut price ciompany for yourself.

I don't know if it illegal, but it is morally wrong.

Any jobs at E-Clear?

Kind regards,

Ex-Flyglobespan employee

I would like to point out that whatever money was due to Globespan as at the date of Administration is now legally the property of PWC as Administrators so E-Clear will not be making a penny out of this situation. You can bet that PWC will take whatever was due to Globespan in full and will do it quickly, otherwise there is no money in the pot for fees, outlays and distributions to creditors!

Any company that arranges three re-financing deals in the last twelve months (Globespan) is showing all the signs of being in distress.

Unfortunately company directors rarely understand the difficulty the comapany is in until the heart has effectively stopped beating.

A company caught in a vice of not receiving the cash it was due, but also not having the management ability to manage the cash flow crunch. It would appear that whilst the busines plan for the company was robust, the common sense day to day management of it was not. The moment that monies due are not received should be the moment the Globespans management started contingencies to free the cash flow, by any means.

Also would like to point out the following article :


and in particular the section as quoted:

//
Elias Elia, chief executive of E-Clear, revealed it had changed its trading terms with several clients but insisted it had been 鈥渧ery fair鈥� to them all.

E-Clear has several major UK clients including Flyglobespan and Allbury Travel Group, which includes Libra Holidays, Argo and Jetlife.
He was speaking after the Slovak no-frills airline SkyEurope, which went into administration in June, said it was pursuing E-Clear for millions of pounds it claimed was overdue.

//

This was dated from June....

Post 10 you might be true in more ways than one.

I imagine PWC will take all of the money from E-Clear. After all they will want to make sure their fees can be paid.

I imagine after they have sorted it all out, over many billed hours and at great expense, there will be little left for the creditors and shareholders.

"Scotland's the worse off for the loss of a well-liked company."
It might have been well-liked in Scotland but it was widely reviled here in Liverpool because of the shambolic way it handled the short lived New York service. My wife and I were two of many who had to fork out several hundreds of pounds when we were stranded in New York in July 2007. We never received any explanation or apology and my legal case for compensation was ongoing, but I imagine it has now bitten the dust along with the company. Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Post 14; "Good riddance to bad rubbish!".

I'm sure your sentiments are of great comfort to the hundreds unemployed and thousands making alternative travel arrangements.

Because you have had a bad experience with the company it now gives you pleasure to see others in the same position? Strange!

I have to say, first & foremost, questions must be asked of management as to how they allowed a situation to develop where their credit card processing company owed them 拢35m. This could have been avoided if they had taken the option with a recognised UK bank that required a large initial deposit, but the cheaper option was sought. Let's be honest no business is going to survive if it is making sales (and profits!!) but not receiving the cash. This has been a problem for Globespan for a considerable amount of time and they were unable to remedy the situation.

I would ask however, by what legislation can PWC reclaim the money from E-Clear that was not available to Globespan in the first place? Would this have saved the company?

Also I believe the entire practice of E-Clear must be investigated. Globespan is not the first company to make this complaint against E-Clear and how they are allowed to continue to operate, taking money from the public and not passing it on is beyond me.

I also await with interest the next move by Halcyon Investments, after in-directly overseeing the collapse of Globespan through withheld funds via E-Clear and promises of investment. Did they ever intend investing or were they hoping for this day, and to try pick off the scraps on the cheap?

Unlike # 14, I liked the company; being able to fly direct to Scotland (without going via London, Paris or wherever) was fantastic.

So now it's back to spending virtually the whole day travelling for what was a two and a half hour journey.....

Bad news for Scotland to lose this company. Pre-Flyglobespan, Globespan as a tour operator had a really high reputation and whenever I used it I was very satisfied. It's sad that this has sunk under the weight of the airline/parent company troubles. As an observer, it always seemed to me that the airline had too few planes for its ambitions. Whenever there was a technical problem it seemed to have an exaggerated effect on the rest of the schedules. And, of course, it launched at the wrong time.

Post 15

The money from credit card sales that E-Clear failed to pass to Globespan now becomes a debtor of the Administration so PWC are legally due that money. It's not that Globespan were not going to get this money, it's just that they needed it quicker than E-Clear were willing to give them it.

If you are paying money out quicker than you are getting it in than you are asking for trouble.

Sadly, the role of E-Clear is all too believable.

At the company where I work, we suffer badly because our card payment handling company (who shall remain nameless!) can take up to 9 days to forward money from a debit card payment. Given that the money goes out of the card holders account that day, there can be little justification for the delay in forwarding an electronic transfer.

cheques would be quicker!

#18

I understand that, as administrator, PWC are legally entitled to reclaim money from Globespan's debtors and have absolutely no qualms with them doing so.

However Globespan's problems with E-clear have been building for many months. It is not simply a case of Globespan spending money before they receive it, although of course in practice they were paying out before they were receiving the money, this was due, I am led to believe, to a clear breach of terms by E-clear in failing to pass on the money and if this was the case I am surprised there was not a legal avenue for Globespan to recover this cash, especially if in the coming weeks PWC is able to do so.

Why did E-clear hold up cash transfer when they obviously knew Globespan would crash without it ? Did Halcyon put pressure on E-clear to withold payments ? Too many questions left unanswered on this story. Putting aside Dalrymples misleading reason for requiring funding, E-Clears' actions need to be investigated further.

It is common practice for credit card merchant providers to hold a percentage of the transaction value for a set period of time. This is to provide a guaranteed revenue stream should chargebacks occur or should the company fail. The big problem is that as a business grows so does the risk to the merchant provider, resulting in them requiring a larger percentage for a longer period of time - what might start as a couple of percent for a couple of weeks can suddenly become double digits and several months. This ultimately becomes unviable, but by this stage there are very few options for a company to pursue. I would be very surprised if PWC will be able to seize these monies as the merchant provider is usually contractually entitled to them.

As a previous employee of the company, I am glad it has folded. When I worked there Mr Dalrymple was an odious melgomaniac who treated staff and customers alike. Unwelcome neccessities to his accumulation of wealth. The amount of "dodgy" characters employed and the amount of dubious dealing made me ashamed to have to work for such a company under such a tyrant. I hope the administrators have to do some 'digging' so that some of these underhand tactics can be revealed.

I have no idea why the company has folded or situations leading up to this, what I will say however, is that this, is a huge blow for Scottish aviation, its staff and customers. I have used FlyGlobespan for nearly 6 years now, and to be honest, I feel a bit stuck now that they have gone.
For me, their pricing was reasonable, the offered a fair service, and the routes suited me, more would have been better. I just returned from 2 weeks in Egypt last week, direct home to Glasgow, for under 拢210 no other airline offers this, with the level of flexibility.

I only hope that a similar situation to Air europa, happens with Globespan. I worked in Glasgow airport in the 90鈥檚 and we heard news that Air Europa had gone bust, the inbound flight was due in 40 minutes. Well to our surprise, the new livery was in the forward hold, the new livery being the letter 鈥渆鈥�, our engineers replaced the 鈥渁鈥� with the letter 鈥渆鈥� and the Air Europe flight returned on schedule . I know this is not the case here, but let鈥檚 hope, the alternative for the crew and the demanding public will arrive very soon.

Lets face it do we really want to be left with TUI, T/Cook, easy jet and Ryan Air amongst others, and be subjected to buying scratch cards ,over priced drinks , hot beverages at 37 C and crew that only smile when you board, (god help you if you press the call bell) are generally treated like cattle the minute the door is closed. Let鈥檚 face it some cabin crew鈥檚 these days, simply hate passengers. Obviously this does not apply to all.

Perhaps some of us have had problems with Globespan, but on the whole, I certainly did not want to see them leave Scotland. Someone, somewhere pick up the pieces, please.

Douglas,

I too liked your article, and agree with the sentiments. Having been 25 years in the Uk Travel Industry I knew Globspan to be a reputable travel organisation.

The role of E-Clear is extremely unclear. Is a claim against them likely either by Globespan's shareholders or administrators? With such large funds involved surely they'd have great difficulty indefending such action expecially when I suspect half the amount may well have helped Globespan on its way.

800 employees? I think something was wrong with the business model. What would have effective business consultants said?

I raise such issues in my business blog
entitled Globespan - How did a good co fails with 100,000 forward bookings.

I do also agree with some of the comments posted above which suggest there may have possiblly been areas of weak management at Globespan. However I believe Douglas that your central point is true that a lack of 拢35m may well have been more influential than any alleged "reckless build-up of debt, cost structure too high or prices being driven down by competitors?"