Amigo urges founder James Benamor not to waste time on shake-up proposals

Glen Crawford is rejoining Amigo as chief executive
Amigo

Troubled guarantor lender Amigo on Monday urged founder James Benamor not to put its turnaround at risk by pressing ahead with his plans to return to the company.

Amigo said incoming chief executive Glen Crawford had made it clear that he will not work with Benamor, who on Friday threatened to call a shareholder meeting to vote on his own return as well as the removal of the acting chairman and chief financial officer.

The company urged Benamor not to waste time and the expense of the meeting and said that it would be “materially detrimental” if Crawford did not stay.

Crawford, who was chief executive from 2016 until last year, has been working with the business since the start of this month prior to receiving full clearance from regulators.

The guarantor lender is under financial pressure after receiving thousands of complaints from customers who say they should never have been granted a loan in the first place. The cost of dealing with these complaints is likely to be “substantially” higher than a previous estimate of £35 million.

Amigo has until December 18 to ensure that it is within the terms of a multimillion-pound financing facility. Major shareholder Benamor, who quit in March and has accused the company of “committing slow-motion suicide”, wants to be chief executive of an Amigo parent firm with Crawford as chief executive of Amigo Loans.

In the event that Benamor is successful in gaining shareholder support for his proposals, Amigo said that it had agreed with Crawford that he may terminate his employment contract immediately.

It added: “The board is strongly of the view that such an outcome would be materially detrimental to the interests of the company and its shareholders taken as a whole.”

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