A gaping black hole has been discovered in the accounts of Granville Technology Group, the owner of Time and Tiny, which went into administration in July (CRN, 1 August).

Administrator Grant Thornton has begun an investigation to trace nearly £8m of missing assets and is considering taking legal action against former directors Tahir Mohsan and Tariq Mohammed, a representative for Grant Thornton told CRN.

“This has all come about from a Grant Thornton creditors report. Part of the black hole centres around £4m of stock for which there are no records,” the representative said.

Granville had reportedly been losing between £1m and £2m a month since January 2005.

Tahir Mohsan, founder of Time, moved to Dubai three years ago and is thought to be getting Time Group Middle East off the ground.

Speculation has been mounting as to how much is owed to creditors, with some reports hinting at around £30m in total. HSBC is the main creditor and is allegedly owed around £19m.

As CRN went to press, Grant Thornton confirmed that a creditors meeting had not yet taken place and a date has not been arranged as yet.

The 90-day time frame for holding a creditors meeting will expire this week as Grant Thornton were appointed as administrators on 27 July.

Jon Atherton, group vice-president of Enta Technologies, said: “Time/Tiny is a classic advert on what not to do. Any one focusing on pushing PCs needs to either become a Dell and corner the market or become niche. Otherwise they will struggle. When organisations such as Time/ Tiny fail it not only causes issues for the suppliers and the clients with warranty but ultimately gives this industry another bad story.”

laura_hailstone@vnu.co.uk