Thomas Cook boss says ‘blame the lenders’ after holiday giant’s collapse
The last ever boss of collapsed holiday giant Thomas Cook has laid the blame for the 178-year-old firm’s failure firmly at the door of its lenders.
Former chief executive Peter Fankhauser said if bondholders and a syndicate of banks – including Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland – had taken action to support a rescue deal faster, the company would not have gone bust.
Read more: Thomas Cook: MPs launch inquiry into ‘corporate greed’ at collapsed holiday giant
“The longer the talks dragged on, the more uncertainty grew, increasing the likelihood of a liquidity squeeze,” Fankhauser told the Sunday Times (paywall). “Had we been quicker, we might not be in the situation we are now.”
Thomas Cook had all but clinched a £900m rescue deal spearheaded by Chinese shareholder Fosun. But a late demand for £200m extra funding from the banks ultimately proved too much for the company.
Fankhauser’s tenure as Thomas Cook chief executive was subsequently ended in abrupt fashion last weekend by a phone call from a senior Department for Transport official, who said the government would not step in with the £200m needed to keep the firm afloat.
The next morning, news of collapse put most of its 9,000 UK staff out of a job and left 150,000 Brits stranded abroad.
In a separate interview with the Mail on Sunday, Fankhauser said he is “deeply sorry” the company went bust, but defended the £8.3m he has been paid since November 2014.
“I don’t think that I am the ‘fat cat’ that I am being described as,” he told the newspaper.
Read more: Thomas Cook collapse: Regulators and business groups clamour for answers
Last week, MPs announced Fankhauser and other senior Cook executives would be hauled in front of the business select committee to explain the collapse.
The upcoming parliamentary inquiry will focus on what Labour MP and business committee chair Rachel Reeves called the “corporate greed” of top-level bosses.