Langbar prepares £100m lawsuits blitz
THE new bosses of scandal-struck Langbar are gearing up to launch lawsuits totalling £100m against a raft of the company's former City financial advisers.
Accountants Baker Tilly, brokers Arden Partners, Nabarro Wells and Insinger Townsley, and lawyers Lawrence Graham are all in the firing line as chairman David Buchler and finance director Chris Wallis draw up plans to recover funds owed to angry investors in the shell company.
All five firms were involved in various public fundraising exercises-with Langbar since its flotation-on Aim in late 2003.
Insinger founder Barry Townsley, a Labour Party donor, has just withdrawn his name from a list of potential life peers after being embroiled in a cronyism row.
Last November Langbar, then run by former Baker Tilly financier Stuart Pearson, rocked the financial markets after revealing it was the victim of a suspected fraud involving £365m of funds thought to have been in Brazilian and Dutch bank accounts. The company is now at the centre of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and City of London police.
At a stormy shareholders' meeting in London yesterday called by Buchler to update investors, Sion Richards of Jones Day, one of Langbar's new law firms, said he anticipated 'soon being in a position to commence procedures with a view to recovering monies'. He added that he was not ruling out any of Langbar's former advisers.
Sources close to the company told the Evening Standard Langbar was looking to draw up lawsuits worth 'between £50m and £100m against former advisers'.
Baker Tilly, Insinger Townsely and Nabarro Wells advised the company when it listed on Aim in October 2003 and raised new money under the leadership of founder and major shareholder Mariusz Ryback.
In November that year the company told the financial markets it was sitting on contracts worth $663m.
Lawyers Lawrence Graham are also in the firing line as the company's main legal adviser from flotation to January this year. Another potential target is Arden Partners, which helped Langbar on a £4.36m shares fund raiser only last August.
In September Arden acted as Langbar's financial adviser when it told financial markets it had 'successfully transferred' $294m of company cash deposits from a Brazilian to a Dutch bank account.
Buchler is also understood to be working on claims against Langbar's founding directors, including Ryback, and its main financial backer, Lambert Financial.
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