Two directors of Recruit Investments Ltd, a Norwich-based holding company that owned various businesses specialising in labour recruitment, have been banned from being company directors for extracting company funds when their creditors were not being paid, the Insolvency Service revealed today.

Richard Price and Timothy Porter were banned from being company directors for six and five years respectively for transferring assets for no consideration, including Arabian horses and money to one of the directors and parties unconnected with the company.

The Involvency Service investigation leading to the disqualifications uncovered that Price and Porter:

• transferred company assets with a value of £242,640, which included “a number” of Arabian horses to parties unconnected with the company for no consideration in return and

• paid £165,541 of company money to Price and/or unconnected parties without due regard to the interests of the company’s creditors, who were largely left unpaid. 

The Insolvency Service said: “The funds were withdrawn and the assets transferred at a time when Price and Porter were, or ought to have been, aware that the company was insolvent and unable to pay its debts as and when they fell due.”

Recruit Investments entered liquidation on 12 November 2013 with a deficiency of £2,656,328. Price and Porter gave undertakings to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on 19 August this year and 8 August this year. Undertakings are the administrative equivalent of a disqualification order but do not involve court proceedings, the Insolvency Service explained.

Both men live in Norfolk.

A disqualification order says that without specific permission of a court, a person with a disqualification cannot:

• act as a director of a company

• take part, directly or indirectly, in the promotion, formation or management of a company or limited liability partnership

• be a receiver of a company’s property.

The names of the companies held by Recruit were not available at press time. 

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