Vertu targets the super-rich
The manufacturing arm of the British luxury smartphone maker Vertu will be liquidated with the loss of nearly 200 jobs after a rescue plan failed.
Vertu Corporation Limited (VCL) made handsets for the super-rich, with handsets clad in titanium and sapphire glass starting at around £10,000 and going up to as much as £280,000 for bespoke, jewel-encrusted devices.
Its owner Murat Hakan Uzan, a Turkish exile based in Paris who owns the Vertu brand separately, had sought to buy the company out of administration in a pre-packaged deal.
The plan floundered in the High Court today amid concerns over the scale of its £128m accounting deficit compared with the £1.9m price Mr Uzan intended to pay.
A spokesman for Vertu said: “Our best efforts to achieve a pre-pack administration have failed because the financial requirements specified within the negotiations went beyond the point where the new company had a chance of financial viability.
“No other part of the group is affected by this development.”
Source: The Telegraph