Letters to creditors from Grant Thornton, seen by TTG, confirm G Adventures offered around £625,000 for the businesses and their obligations.
On December 29 an unnamed company also came forward offering the nominal £1 price. That offer was withdrawn at 4am on December 30 and a revised bid was rejected six hours later.
Grant Thornton explained in the letters the other offer had “required further legal work” and that G Adventures’ bid was accepted as it “provided both greater certainty and the best overall result for creditors”, protecting £17 million of potential value for creditors as well as saving 13,000 bookings and the holidays of 500 cruise customers.
A collapse would have resulted in claims of £12.5 million via the CAA or credit card providers.
Of the £625,000, Page & Moy Travel Group Surface Holidays Ltd creditors will share £500,000; those of Page & Moy Air Holidays £85,000 and Page & Moy Travel Group £40,000. There are no secured creditors.
Both offers involved taking on ALG’s forward bookings, worth £12.5 million, and obligations to suppliers of £5.2 million.
Neither offer included ALG’s Market Harborough office, worth around £4 million but with a £1.5 million mortgage.
In its letter to creditors, Grant Thornton said it “considered a pre-packaged sale to be necessary because the administrators would not have the relevant CAA licences to continue to trade the companies after their appointment because the licences would terminate on insolvency”.
The letter adds: “The administrators also considered that preservation of the business was the best way to deliver value to creditors,” with G Adventures the best option.
Grant Thornton blamed ALG’s cruise brands, Swan Hellenic and Voyages of Discovery, for its cash flow problems. It said high operating costs, currency losses, terrorism in Turkey and Egypt and maintenance costs played a part. “These losses were funded over a number of years by profits generated in the tours business,” it said.
Investigations also found that ALG’s surface brands’ pension scheme had a £7.6 million deficit.
Grant Thornton declined to comment further until the creditors’ report is published.
