In a letter sent to many service agents, received this morning, The administrator acting on behalf of the failed furniture retailer, MFI, has requested payment for monies owed to MFI.
Obviously the administrator, Zoflo Cooper, is unaware that virtually any spare parts bought by service agents were intended for MFI customers to service the warranty requirements and all too often billed back to MFI. Naturally as MFI entered into administration twice many of the invoices sent to MFI recharging these parts will remain unpaid. In some cases, twice for some agents.
The letter is the first communication that many service agents have had from the administrator and does not ask for the current position financially from the agent’s perspective. It only demands payment for the amount that the administrator thinks the agents owe.
It also seems to take no account of any money owed for services delivered to MFI, nor does it ask.
The full text of the letter is as follows.
Dear Sirs
MFI Financial Services Limited – In Administration (the Company)
Further to the Joint Administrators appointment on 16 October 2008, I have reviewed the Company’s books and records and note that there is a balance of £*,***.00 due to the Company.
Please make full and immediate payment in settlement of this liability to the Joint Administrators account, details of which are given below.
Account name: MFI Financial Services Limited – In Administration
Sort Code: 30-93-14
Account number: 05992934
Alternatively payment may be made by cheqlue, all cheques should be-made payable-to ‘MFI Financial Services Limited – In Administration’ and sent to Zolfo Cooper, Wellington Plaza, 31 Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 4DL.
Please note that following the recent completion of a Management Buy-Out by the partner group of Kroll’s UK Corporate Advisory and Business Recovery practice from Kroll Inc, we will be operating under the Zolfo Cooper brand name going forward. Zolfo Cooper Europe will continue to be headquartered at 10 Fleet Place, London EC4M 7RB with our existing network of UK offices remaining in their current locations.
Please also note that with effect from 1 January 2009, Simon Jonathon Appell and Stuart Charles Edward Mackellar are now licensed by the Insolvency Practitioners Association.
If you have any queries please contact Stuart Parnham on the above number.
Yours faithfully
For and on behalf of MFI Financial Services Limited
Joint Administrator
Needless to say that many agents have already voiced that they have no intention of paying the amounts demanded due to money owed to them due to the collapse of MFI and that the figures given are incorrect.
It strikes us that without a full audit and reconciliation of the accounts properly that it is completely unreasonable to simply demand a sum of money, seemingly, plucked from the sky to coin a phrase. Especially when many of the agents have already suffered considerable financial losses due to MFI’s collapse so recently and it would appear that the administrators have little understanding of how this area of the business worked.