Box.co.uk enters Administration

[aidenbliss789]

Summary

 

 Box.co.uk has entered Administration after being Sued by new owners Tech Retail Co for £18m after they had allegedly over-inflated the value of Box.co.uk

current Box.co.uk owners Tactus who also own Chillblast, Horizon, Geo, and CCL. TACTUS currently has accounts overdue with HMRC (His Majesty's Revenue & Customs) and overdue accounts with HMRC for the sister company CCL .

 

 

 

Quotes

Quote

Firstly, Box may be owned by Tactus, but are currently being sued by their new owner for £18m because they had allegedly over-inflated their value

 

My thoughts

This makes for grim news for us here in the uk as we could be looking not just losing box.co.uk (where i got parts for my current PC ) but potentially CCL and that makes knowing where to get pc parts from as on some occations CCL and Box ended up being the cheapest place to get the latest CPU or gpu

 

Sources

https://www.box.co.uk/

https://www.eteknix.com/box-co-uk-files-for-administration-following-lawsuit/

https://www.law360.com/articles/1593505/tech-retail-co-sues-for-18m-over-soured-acquisition

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09611043

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09611043

 

[SansVarnic]

-= Moved to General discussion =-

It may be news but not tech related news. This is business issue with no direct relation to technology.

[Monkey Dust]

Yeah, this doesn't sound for competition in our market. Though if Tech Retail wanted Box, they could well buy it out of administration, at reduced cost. I guess Tactus's problems go back to the great GPU shortage when very few people were building new PCs.

[LogicalDrm]

Had to google what "administration" means in this sense. Seems very local law terminology. Anyway, this is kinda what Musk accused Twitter of doing, though he was unable to provide enough evidence to prove it. Here, its on to Tactus to prove things (I think). And considering they have seen the Musk failure, they must have better understanding of things and much higher chances of winning.

[fawncashew]

On 2/15/2024 at 8:34 PM, LogicalDrm said:

Had to google what "administration" means in this sense. Seems very local law terminology. Anyway, this is kinda what Musk accused Twitter of doing, though he was unable to provide enough evidence to prove it. Here, its on to Tactus to prove things (I think). And considering they have seen the Musk failure, they must have better understanding of things and much higher chances of winning.

Its a pretty different case here to what Musk claimed against Twitter. The core case here was that Tactus bought Box for a total £32.5 million (mix of cash and shares), which was a value agreed based on the adjusted EBITDA figures of £5 million for a specific 12 month period provided by the previous owners. Tactus are claiming that the owners fraudulently provided an inflated adjusted EBITDA figure by not properly representing the amount of stock they had on hand/the cost of that stock or the potential for lost value in obselesence of that stock. This will just be a case for forensic accountants.

[LogicalDrm]

21 minutes ago, fawncashew said:

Its a pretty different case here to what Musk claimed against Twitter. The core case here was that Tactus bought Box for a total £32.5 million (mix of cash and shares), which was a value agreed based on the adjusted EBITDA figures of £5 million for a specific 12 month period provided by the previous owners. Tactus are claiming that the owners fraudulently provided an inflated adjusted EBITDA figure by not properly representing the amount of stock they had on hand/the cost of that stock or the potential for lost value in obselesence of that stock. This will just be a case for forensic accountants.

Ways may be different, but core is still same. Both cases are about claims of inflated value.

[fawncashew]

33 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

Ways may be different, but core is still same. Both cases are about claims of inflated value.

Having read it back you are right, it is more or less the same thing. This is probably a little easier to resolve given its more tangible than the misrepresentation that went on at twitter though i imagine!

 

EDIT: Worth noting that having read through the High Court Judge's ruling on this case, it does seem to side very much with the prior Box owners in saying there wasn't necessarily dishonesty. Interesting points to note include that case law referenced includes the Spice Girls, previous Box owners did discuss in emails "creative [accounting]" and with reference to the acounts "we can probably fudge a commentary", although doesn't suggest this actually ammounted to any impropriety. Long and the short of it is that most of the claims have been dismissed, and the one that remains is a second claim against over/understating certain assets which is pending clarification.

Edited March 3 by fawncashew