World Furnishings boss owed customers 100k

Jun 14 2009 by Rob Pattinson, Sunday Sun

NORTH furniture boss Ifaquar Shah owed customers more than £100,000 when his luxury furnishings firm folded, the Sunday Sun can reveal.

The figure has been admitted as part of a debt totalling £750,000 the entrepreneur has put his name to.

A signed affidavit attached to a statement of his company’s affairs has been lodged with Companies House by joint liquidators Taylor Rowlands.

The estimated accounts show Mr Shah admitted owing an estimated £4500 in outstanding wages and holiday-pay to his staff and more than £160,000 to suppliers.

Customers who had paid for and put down deposits on goods were owed £103,000.

The figures are all estimates made from Mr Shah’s own records and show the extent of the cash his business owes across the region.

Friends report “rarely” seeing the businessman since his Newcastle and Sunderland stores were stripped of their stock, fittings and fixtures and placed in voluntary liquidation, last month.

But customers’ initial fears they could be left heavily out of pocket have eased after a Yorkshire-based furniture suppliers, Ponsford, took over World Furnishings’ order book.

A spokesperson for furniture suppliers Ponsford said: “We have no legal or financial obligation to the customers who have purchased goods from World Furnishings, however we have tried to adopt a helpful attitude where customers have lost money and offered to supply goods at a reduced rate, sometimes absorbing the cost of the deposits that have been lost, although we cannot guarantee to do this in all cases.

“We will look at each situation on an individual basis.”

Creditors from Sunderland, Newcastle, County Durham, and Cumbria have all made claims in the hope of seeing returned at least some of the hard-earned cash spent at the stores, in Ivy Road, Gosforth, and Fawcett Street, Sunderland.