The chairman of Carillion was working towards making an upbeat trading announcement only five days before an £845 million writedown that heralded the group’s demise, according to newly published minutes of a board meeting. MPs accused Philip Green of lacking even “a tenuous grasp on the reality of the situation” after reading the disclosures, which they said demonstrated “an extraordinary refusal to accept clear evidence” of the company’s rapidly deteriorating financial position. Carillion, a big outsourcing and construction contractor, went into compulsory liquidation — the most drastic procedure in UK insolvency law — in January with debts and pension liabilities each exceeding £1 billion. The future of 20,000 employees was thrown into doubt, as were contracts for work in hospitals, schools and prisons. Pension fund members faced…

Source: The Times March 01, 2018 00:00 UTC