Cattles

Cattles plc
Subsidiary
Industry Consumer finance
Founded 1927
Headquarters Batley, UK
Key people
 Margaret Young, Executive Chairman
Revenue £822.2 million (2007)
£165.2 million (2007)
£114.7 million (2007)
Website www.cattles.co.uk

Cattles plc is a British consumer finance company based in Batley, West Yorkshire. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a former constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

History

The Company was founded by Joseph Cattle in 1927 in Hull.[1] It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1963.[1] In the 1990s it developed the Shopacheck brand.[1] In 1990 it acquired Compass Credit and went on to buy Welcome Financial Services in 1994, The Lewis Group in 1997 and Dial4aloan in 2001.[1]

In June 2009 in an effort to improve liquidity, Welcome Car Finance, the company's car financing arm was closed.[2] This followed the announcement made by Cattles in May 2009 that the company was to axe 1000 jobs. The closure meant that 130 jobs were lost.[2]

In March 2009 three directors - James Corr (Finance Director), Ian Cummine (Chief Operating Officer) and Adrian Cummings (Compliance and Risk Director) were suspended pending an investigation by Deloitte into accounting irregularities.[3] In July 2009, the above 3 directors were dismissed without compensation and the Chairman Norman Broadhurst and CEO David Postings chose to leave the group.

In December 2009 the company announced that its losses were such that shareholders could not expect their shares (suspended from trading in April 2009) to have any value. Executive chairman Margaret Young refused to put to an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders a proposal that the non executive directors who constituted the audit committee of the company consider resigning at the end of the year.

Shareholders then voted with an 83% majority in favour of a request to ask the financial creditors of the company to sanction the payment of up to £500,000, to cover the costs of a shareholder petitioning to wind up the company.[4]

PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers) agreed a request to resign as auditors of the company. Grant Thornton were appointed in their place.[5]

Paul Felton-Smith, who is experienced in financial restructuring, was appointed as Finance Director in June 2010.[6]

Cattles was acquired by Bovess Limited on 28 February 2011, as part of a High Court sanctioned scheme of arrangement. Cattles was then delisted from the LSE on 7 March 2011.[7]

Operations

The company offers loans to "sub-prime" customers who are often refused credit by more mainstream lenders such as high-street banks. Since such customers are considered to be more risky, the interest rates charged tend to be significantly higher than those charged by banks.

Controversy over home collected credit

In June 2004, the National Consumer Council referred a Super-Complaint regarding the Home Collected Credit industry to the Office of Fair Trading. The Office of Fair Trading published a consultative paper which raised concerns about concentration of market share between the four largest providers, including Cattles. It also mentioned a number of business practices and customer characteristics which could hinder market competitiveness.[8]

References

External links

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