Chris Yates was sounding bullish. Boastful, even. The chief executive of the medical diagnostic firm Abingdon Health was telling his audience that after a ‘roller-coaster 12 months’, it had been ‘a real positive for us to be able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic’.
His workforce, he revealed proudly, had quadrupled to 200 but it had not been easy – his staff had worked seven days a week to develop a new Covid test for a government contract worth up to £87.5million.
Speaking at a webinar last week from his six-bedroom home just outside York, Mr Yates, 46, a Cambridge economics graduate, exuded a quiet confidence, and no wonder. It had been quite some year.
In December 2019, Abingdon Health was teetering on the brink, with losses of £1.5million.
According to its last published accounts, the firm’s directors were warning that to survive, it would have to cut costs and seek new investment.
In December 2019, Abingdon Health was teetering on the brink, with losses of £1.5m. A year later, it was floating on the AIM small firms stock market, raising £22m from investors. That means the shares owned by Chris Yates (left), chief executive of the medical diagnostic firm, are worth £7.2m and those held by company chairman Chris Hand (right) £12.4m
Abingdon Health was awarded a deal first to develop and then supply a million do-it-yourself home Covid antibody tests, with an option for nine million more, worth a potential £75m. There’s just one problem. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has since cancelled all further orders ‘with immediate effect’
Fast forward in pandemic Britain. Exactly a year later, Abingdon was floating on the AIM small firms stock market, raising £22million from investors.
Yesterday it was valued at £106million. That means the shares owned by Mr Yates are worth £7.2million and those held by company chairman Chris Hand £12.4million.
The reason? In between had come Operation Moonshoot, Boris Johnson’s multi-billion pound bid to create a world-leading test and trace system. Abingdon Health was awarded a deal first to develop and then supply a million do-it-yourself home Covid antibody tests, with an option for nine million more, worth a potential £75million.
There’s just one problem. Health Secretary Matt Hancock has since cancelled all further orders ‘with immediate effect’ for not being accurate enough.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9229507/Taxpayers-foot-87m-bill-ministers-failing-company-Covid-contract-cancel-it.html
Well Actually, Manchester, United Kingdom,
The Good Law Project is currently engaged in another judicial review case against the Government, about another contract seemingly handed to people without any transparency. Despite the Government seemingly acknowledging that their actions weren’t right, they’ve insisted on still defending them and have told the GLP Government costs will be at least a million quid – when normally they’d be a quarter of that at most. The GLP considers that claiming costs so high is an attempt by the Government to frighten them off continuing with the judicial review. One has to wonder what the Government is hiding if they’re trying to intimidate people from wanting to see the contracts they’ve signed
Miss Boon Ng Chum, Singapore, Singapore,
The AlternativeInvestmentMarket is full of this type of failing company that started with great fanfares and good storyline and promises, then fail to deliver, then placings and dilution, then shareholder lose money but the directors get rich, same old story.
Henry Figgins, neverland, United Kingdom,
I think a “Proper” genuine enquiry and not just the usual white wash exercise to protect the “Great and Good” will find that a lot of dubious deals were done and a lot of bank accounts stuffed, but I do not hold a great deal of hope for an honest public enquiry they never are.
Jan1945, Barnsley, United Kingdom,
Easy to to do when it’s not Matt Hancock’s money, they are throwing about, Some one need to be held accountable
Jan1945, Barnsley, United Kingdom,
Some one needs to be held accountable, for this loss OF OUR MONEY. which they seem to forget?
Stafford, Brighton, United Kingdom,
If the contracts were not properly prepared and legally sound, then they are unlawful and the financial and other consequences of this must fall on the individuals responsible.
MisterC., Local to me, United Kingdom,
The government have set aside 1 million to prevent The Good Law Project bringing all the dubious contracts out in court. This is disgrace this government have wasted 100 of millions and no comeback. Please support the good law project and DM please put stories such as this on the front page. It keeps happening – enough! Its tax payers money it needs accounting for.
ukgovernmentwatch 