Another perspective
Upon reading the press release issued by PCC Technology Limited, announcing the successful restructuring of Evesham Technology Limited, and its desire to sell the Evesham brand, Elonex CEO Nick Smith was moved to interrupt his skiing holiday to offer HEXUS.channel his comments.
On PCC boss Tahir Mohsan’s claim that they had been able to “minimise the adverse effects of an insolvency situation on consumers and employees alike,” Smith said: “It was clearly just an asset-stripping exercise, with no respect for the staff or the creditors.”
On Mohsan’s comment: “PCC was conscious not to leave customers out on a limb without any support,” Smith countered: “They kept the support in so they could keep selling product. Now it’s just a profit-making exercise.”
On former Evesham chairman Richard Austin’s conclusion that “I feel that the best all round outcome was achieved,” Smith said: “We made the best offer at the time. Our intention was to merge Elonex’s production with theirs to create economies of scale.
“Our offer was in excess of a million pounds plus funding to continue and expand existing Evesham operations. If our offer had gone through we would be employing many more people in the local community than the current owners did even initially, let alone now.”
Nick Smith specialises in recovering value from companies in administration. He openly admits that this often involves extracting the maximum value from its assets, but in the case of Elonex the decision was made to run the business. Elonex has recently announced the launch of a £99 laptop.
After HEXUS.channel reported on the PCC announcement yesterday, Evesham emailed to invite us to send them questions. They were sent yesterday evening.
