Tag Archives: Bristol Ferry Boat Company LTD

MYSTERY OF THE MISSING BOATS

What happened to hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of FERRY BOATS owned by the original Bristol Ferry Boat company after it went tits up within days of its 42 per cent shareholder “UNCLE” GEORGE FERGUSON taking office as mayor?

According to a report presented by Bristol City Council officers to their Place Scrutiny Commission in October, the boats were SOLD to the first of the so-called ‘Phoenix’ ferry companies set up in the wake of the collapse, Ferryboats of Bristol Ltd.

This short-lived private company was set up in January 2013 by a former director of Uncle George’s failed ferry company, IAN “BUNGLE” BUNGARD, and ran ferries around the docks until it was wound up in May 2013 when another company, the Bristol Community Ferry Boat Company, took over the routes and, apparently, the ferries.

However, we’ve seen the closing balance sheet for Bungard’s Ferryboats of Bristol Ltd and it only ever had £2 worth of assets held in cash throughout its short existence. There’s no sign of any ferry boats at all.

However, we do know, from the liquidators report, that the boats were sold by the liquidators “by private treaty’ for £171k in December 2012. The question is to who? And how did they then end up at this new community co-operative ferry operation run by ‘THE FRIENDS OF GEORGE’, the Bristol Community Ferry Boat Company?

A further mystery surrounds the disappearance and reappearance of at least one of the ferry boats, ‘THE ELIZABETH’. In June 2012 the boat was listed in audited accounts supplied to Bristol City Council as an asset of Fergie’s collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company.

So how come the boat is now registered at Ferguson’s address at THE TOBACCO FACTORY and is up for sale for £15k? This invites obvious questions such as how did this asset of the collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company end up in George’s possession?

And if it was an asset of the original Ferry Boat Company, that Fergie was a 42 per cent shareholder in, why was the boat not sold and the monies used to pay creditors as bankruptcy law requires?

BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY SAGA: #1 WHAT IS A SECTION 216 OFFENCE?

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The original name was the BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY, 42 per cent owned by Mayor George Ferguson, which went into full liquidation in February 2013.

A new name appeared between January 2 2013 and April 2013 – FERRYBOATS OF BRISTOL. One of two directors was IAN “BUNGLE” BUNGARD, a former director of the insolvent BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY. This is the company that never had more than £2.00 in assets during its existence.

A third company, set-up by “the gang” appeared in April 2013 – BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

The very long arm of Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 on “Phoenix Companies” says:

Prohibited name

Section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 defines the circumstances in which criminal and civil liability can be imposed on a director who acts, without proper notice being given or the leave of the court, for a company or even an unincorporated business which is known by a prohibited name.

A name will be prohibited where it is the same name that the liquidating company was known as at any time in the 12 months immediately before it went into liquidation, or where it is sufficiently similar as to suggest an association with the liquidating company.

This includes a trading name.

Criminal liability:

Where a company trades under a prohibited name an individual can be guilty of a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment or fine, or both for:
• acting as a director of the company; and
• taking part either directly or indirectly in the formation, management or promotion of the company.

An individual can also be liable under Section 216 for being involved in a business using the prohibited name, even if it is not a company.

Civil liability

Under section 217 of the Act, a person will be personally responsible for the ‘relevant debts’ of a company if he is involved in the management of the company in breach of section 216, or if he is involved in the management of a company and takes instructions from a person he knows to be in breach of section 216. The relevant debts are those debts which were incurred whilst that person was acting in contravention of section 216 or taking instructions from a person he knew to be in contravention of section 216.

What interesting times we live in …

FERRIES: MEET THE GANG

FERRY QUESTIONS #3

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A boat was put up for sale recently. If you have a spare £15K you can buy it. It is called THE ELIZABETH.

Is it a coincidence that this is the same name as one of the boats previously owned by the now collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company?

As a 42% shareholder in the now collapsed Bristol Ferry Boat Company perhaps the Mayor of Bristol, George Ferguson, can explain why it seems to be registered to the Tobacco Factory?

http://www.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=379828

FERRY QUESTIONS #2

FERRY QUESTIONS #1

CENSORED!!! MAYOR’S FERRY COMPANY QUESTIONS

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At 2.00pm this afternoon a series of THIRTEEN questions from a member of the public about the bankruptcy of the BRISTOL FERRYBOAT COMPANY were sent out to relevant councillors and managers at Bristol City Council in advance of tomorrow’s PLACE Scrutiny Committee where they should have been answered by council managers IN PUBLIC.

Mayor GEORGE FERGUSON‘s conduct as a 42 per cent shareholder in the bankrupt company and Bristol City Council’s role in awarding the basketcase business a series of tenders and grants over many years with no questions asked were the theme of the questions.

At 5.30pm today, council transport boss, PETER “STUPID” MANN, a close ally of the mayor, informed the chair of the scrutiny committee he was pulling the questions.

MANN’s excuse was that some of the questions were the subject of Freedom of Information requests. MANN was supported in this blatant ACT OF CENSORSHIP by council lawyers.

Of course, there is NO LAW against a member of the public asking a local authority questions that are also the subject of a Freedom of Information request. Neither is there anything in the authority’s constitution to prevent a member of the public asking such questions.

MANN and the – as yet – unnamed council solicitor are TALKING BOLLOCKS and CENSORING embarrassing information with potentially criminal implications.

The censored questions are here: http://issuu.com/bristolnews/docs/place_qs?e=0/9833673

The issues raised include:

1) The successor companies were Phoenix Companies (which means the evidence suggests that directors just walked away from debts to buy back assets at a heavy discount – with one of the directors from Ferguson’s company simply moving to the next one to run it)

2) SIP 16 infringement (a need to follow a strict code of practice laid down in law for providing information to creditors in order to resurrect a company from most if not all the same assets of the one just gone bust) – we believe this process was not followed

3) Section 216 Offence – all creditors must be consulted about the intention for a successor company to be named almost identically to the collapsed one. Not followed as far as we are aware. The Bristol Post stories where it called the new company by EXACTLY THE SAME NAME show this clearly

4) A failure to re-tender the routes of the Bristol Ferry Boat company – it is an asset belonging to the council that was handed from one dead company to its successors like sweets to a small child. No attempt to allow competitive tendering. No effort to maximize profitability for the benefit of council taxpayers.

5) A mysterious and glaring omission of who or how all the staff salaries were paid at the Bristol Ferry Boat Company (which would be paying an unsecured creditor and no one else which is illegal). How do all staff salaries appear to be paid in liquidators report in December 12 signed by Jane Salvidge? Can someone explain?

6) Possibly trading fraudulently in the summer of ’12 when the Bristol Ferry Boat Company submitted a bid for passenger routes across the Harbour (they were hundreds of thousands of pounds in the red) yet would have to have submitted a Pre-Qualifying Questionnaire answer to BCC saying they were actually solvent. BCC holds the PQQ completed by George Ferguson’s Bristol FerryBoat Company – but for some reason is reluctant to share it.

FERRY STRANGE

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MAYOR AT CENTRE OF FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF DOCK’S FERRY SERVICE

A scandal is emerging around Bristol Mayor, “Uncle” George Ferguson’s role in the failed BRISTOL FERRY BOAT COMPANY LTD. The company, which ran the blue and yellow ferries around the docks and received considerable council and government subsidies, crashed with £300K DEBTS, no paid-up basic insurance cover for passengers and owing Bristol City Council £11k in mooring fees at the time Ferguson was elected in November 2012.

Indeed, on his very first day at work at the Council House on November 18 2012, it seems super successful businessman Uncle George, who owned A 40% STAKE in the company, was busy planning to LAY OFF 30 STAFF at his failed company and calling in the administrators! Although he blustered to gullible Nazi Post reporters at the time, “I have never been involved in the day-today running of the company.”
Then things get murkier. By early January 2013 a new company, with a remarkably similar name, FERRYBOATS BRISTOL had appeared and was running the very same boats on the very same routes around the docks. This new company, operated by what was described as “a consortium of investors”, curiously, was managed by one of the directors of Ferguson’s failed ferry company, IAN ‘BUNGLE” BUNGARD.

However, Bristol Ferry Boats Ltd didn’t last long either. By May 2013 a third entity, this time a cooperative venture, with yet another similar name took over the boats and the operation, BRISTOL COMMUNITY FERRY BOAT COMPANY.

Again the director from Ferguson’s failed ferries, BUNGLE, was aboard along with his wife, PHILLIPA, and they were joined by Ferguson associates like his old WELLINGTON SCHOOL chum, Sustrans twit JOHN “REALLY” GRIMSHAW; local urbanist and architect twerp KEITH “TIMMY” HALLETT; Merchant Venturer JAY TIDMARSH and, our favourite, SUE LEARNER, described in the company prospectus as Phillipa Bungard’s midwife!

A lot of questions can be asked about what this gang of posh Bristol establishment insiders, random midwives and ‘FRIENDS OF GEORGE’ were up to.

Not least, how did they manage to obtain a series of PRIME FERRY ROUTES around the city docks without having to go through a city council tender process against the vastly better run NUMBER 7 FERRY company?

This tender process, coincidentally, is the direct responsibility of our old friend, the city council’s dribbling mentally ill loon of a docks boss, CAP’N TONY “AHAB” NICHOLS.

Legally, neither of these new ferry companies had any right whatsoever to routes that were awarded by open tender to a completely separate legal entity. Public procurement rules forbid this. So why didn’t Ahab RETENDER the routes as he’s LEGALLY OBLIGED to do rather than hand them quietly over to a local group of wealthy and influential individuals who just happened to be very friendly with the mayor?

Another unanswered question is what happened to all the PUBLIC MONEY that went in to the original basketcase ferry boat company, 40% owned by the mayor? Hundreds of thousands have been poured in by the city council since 2002 and the company even received a government development loan of £125k in 2009.

How were DEBTS OF £300K ever run up? How was the company able to obtain city council tenders while being FINANCIALLY UNVIABLE? Especially strange when you consider that rival firm, Number 7 Ferries, operates similar routes on the same waterway at a PROFIT.

The final question arises over the use of so-called “PHOENIX COMPANIES”. These are new companies set up to trade in the same activities as a former company so it looks like “business as usual” to customers. Phoenix companies can also use directors from a former failed company.

However, while this is legal in certain cases if investors have been properly notified of the circumstances, elsewhere companies that have carried out this DODGY PRACTICE have attracted criticism in the media and parliament as it allows companies to effectively dump their liabilities, walk away from debt and start all over again at an unfair advantage.
The formation of a Phoenix Company is subject to regulation by the DTI. So watch this space …

The BRISTOLIAN

“Smiter of the High and Mighty”