Deal Agreed For Farepak Victims

The long suffering victims of the Farepak debacle (the Christmas savings club that collapsed in 2006) have finally had some reasonably "good" news.

They will end up receiving a total of 50p for every £1 that they saved with the company. Final payments will be made in August.

Suzy Hall, national campaign co-ordinator of victim group Unfairpak, is quoted in the Guardian:

"This is a much better outcome than we expected – to get 50p overall when we started with nothing in the pot, and then [were offered] just 4p for every £1. 

I'm extremely happy."

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Spain Effectively Insolvent

ZeroHedge has quoted Charles Diebel (Lloyds Head of Market Strategy) as saying that Spain is "effectively insolvent".

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Bright Future For Ex Farepak Director?

William Rollason has joined Bright Futures (a holding company focussed on providing specialist contract catering services within the corporate business, local authority and independent schools sectors) as a non-executive director.

However, his tenure as NED may be short lived, Rollason was chief executive of European Home Retail, the parent company of Farepak (the Christmas hamper business that went bust in 2006) and moves are afoot in the High Court by the Insolvency Service to disqualify the 9 directors of Farepak and its parent from holding a directorship again.

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Bankruptcies Rocket

Unsurprisingly, given the state of the economy, the number of bankruptcies has rocketed. The Insolvency Service report that corporate insolvencies rose to 4,941 in Q1 of 2009, a rise 56% over the same period last year, and rise of 7% on Q4 of 2008.

Individual insolvencies rose by 19% to 29,774, this is the highest level since records began in 1960.

Personal bankruptcies rose by 23% per cent to 19,062, and individual voluntary arrangements (IVA's) rose by almost 12% to 10,713.

Unfortunately, things are likely to get worse before any improvement in the economy (as and when that happens) kicks in.

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