To: Vince Cable.

BC Partners Phones for U equity scam.

Phones4U was bought by the private equity house, BC Partners, in 2011 for £200m. BC then borrowed £205m and, having saddled the company with vast amounts of debt, paid themselves a dividend of £223m. Crippled by debt, the company has now collapsed into administration.

Why is this important?

The people who crippled it have walked away with nearly £20m million, while 5,600 people face losing their jobs. The taxman may also be stiffed on £90m in unpaid VAT and PAYE.
Instead of shrugging and saying, “This is the world we live in” you should be on the streets, you should be calling for this sort of thing to be a jailable offence, and you should want to see these guys up in front of parliament explaining why they made around £3,500 for every person they put out of a job. Seriously, Stefano Quadrio Curzio, the managing partner at BC, should be ashamed to show his face in public.