Time owners take over at Evesham

 

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By Barry Collins

Posted on 4 Feb 2008 at 10:52

PC Pro Exclusive: The former owners of Time Computers are believed to have taken full control of operations at Evesham Technology.

The founder of Time Computers, Tahir Mohsan, was last year behind a £10m "rescue package" for stricken Evesham Technology. The company's assets were passed to a new company called Geemore Technology, although the company continued to trade under the Evesham name.

Now sources close to the company have told PC Pro that long-term Evesham managing director, Richard Austin, has handed over control of the firm. The company and its PR agency have ignored multiple requests for comment over the past five days, but staff answering the phones have told us that Mohsan associate, Richard Singleton, is now in charge of day-to-day operations.

One of the staff on Evesham's support desk told us the new management are "driving down from Burnley every day" when asked why Singleton wasn't available. Burnley is Mohsan's UK base, and the home of the family's ISP business, Supanet.

All change

In an interview with PC Pro conducted shortly after the Geemore takeover last summer, Richard Austin insisted that he remained "very much in charge" of the company.

When pressed on whether he had a long-term future at the new Evesham, Austin claimed: "I'm continuing... We're really going to move it forward again. It's been very difficult during a period of time where we've been going downhill, we're all looking forward to going uphill."

Austin also defended Mohsan's controversial record at Time, which itself collapsed with huge debts. "By the time the Granville Group [Time's holding company] collapsed he was long gone. He was based in Dubai and no longer a director or shareholder in that company," Austin claimed.

An administrator's report released last October revealed that the old Evesham collapsed owing millions to a series of creditors, including AMD, Microsoft and ViewSonic. It also reported that Austin had an overdrawn director's loan account of £650,000 at the time of the company's collapse, of which he repaid only £150,000.

Austin could not be contacted for comment at the time of publication.

In line with our usual policy, PC Pro will will not be reviewing Evesham PCs until our questions are answered and we can once again visit the company's premises.