Leasing companies and finance entrepreneurs have launched bids
to buy the remaining portfolios of the two General Capital
companies that collapsed into administration earlier this month,
Leasing Life has learnt.

Tarun Mistry, the head of leasing and advisory
services at Grant Thornton involved in the administration, said
that he had seen “quite a lot of interest” for the leasing
portfolios of the two companies, General Capital Venture Finance
Ltd and General Capital Finance Ltd.

Tarun MistryThe companies’ asset finance business, which is
larger than their two other arms which specialise in venture
capital and property finance, has a portfolio of around 700 lease
contracts to SMEs worth in total around £8 million plus
interest.

Most of the contracts still have around three
years to run before they end.

Commenting on the reasons for the
administration, Mistry, who is working on the administration
alongside Grant Thornton insolvency practitioners, Malcolm Shierson
and Daniel Smith, said: “The company suffered as a result of the
downturn and also suffered significant bad debt, particularly its
venture finance arm, which resulted in the erosion of certain parts
of its portfolio which, in turn, had caused its current
position.”

Mistry also said he is “considering options
about arrangements for the best recovery” of the asset finance
portfolio, and will draw conclusions within the next few weeks or
months.

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“We could sell the asset finance agreements,
we could collect them out using someone else to collect them, or we
could collect them out using the infrastructure of the companies,”
he added.

The two companies’ parent, General Capital
Group Plc, has not also been put into administration because it is
believed not to have had any trading activities.

“However, the parent may go into
administration but as it has no assets then may go down a different
route, such as liquidation or a dissolution,” Mistry said.

Brendan Malkin