Aidan and Howard Barclay, the eldest sons of the late Sir David Barclay, have narrowly sidestepped bankruptcy after striking an eleventh-hour deal with creditors that has prompted HSBC to abandon its pursuit of the brothers through the High Court.
At a hearing on Tuesday, the bank’s counsel Matthew Abraham told Judge Burton that HSBC was now seeking to have its bankruptcy petitions dismissed following the approval of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), the formal alternative to bankruptcy that allows debtors to settle obligations with creditors on agreed terms.
“In the circumstances, the petitioner seeks dismissal of the petitions following approval of the IVA,” Mr Abraham told the court. The arrangement, the court was told, had been waved through at a virtual creditors’ meeting the previous Tuesday. Judge Burton said she was “content in the circumstances” to grant the dismissal. The terms of the agreement remain confidential.
For Aidan, 70, and Howard, 66, the ruling brings a measure of personal reprieve after a wretched run for the once-formidable Barclay business empire, though it does little to mask the scale of value that has bled away from a fortune painstakingly assembled by their father and his late twin, Sir Frederick, through decades of debt-fuelled acquisitions.
HSBC filed its bankruptcy petitions against the brothers in December, citing substantial sums owed in the wake of the family’s logistics business going under. The bank has so far recovered just £1.2 million of a £143.5 million secured loan from the administration of Logistics Group, the parent company behind the Barclay-owned parcel carriers Yodel and ArrowXL.
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