The High Court in Birmingham has ruled that a world famous
pottery collection owned by the Wedgwood Museum Trust is available
to pay off creditors.
Administrators from the Stoke-on-Trent office of corporate
recovery specialists Begbies Traynor had sought the ruling in order
to determine the future of the collection.
Bob Young and Steve Currie were appointed joint administrators
of the Wedgwood Museum Trust in April 2010, and have since been
seeking the direction of the court to determine the future the
Barlaston venue's 10,000 piece collection.
Mr Young said: "We made an application to the High Court as we
wanted the judge to clarify for us whether the collection is an
asset of the company or not, so as to establish whether we can or
cannot sell it for the general benefit of creditors.
"Or whether the assets can remain in trust. The legal advice we
obtained was not clear on this point."
The application was the subject of a three day hearing in
September 2011.
The Wedgwood Museum Trust Ltd was placed into administration as
a necessary step to enable the Wedgwood Group Pension Plan to seek
the support of the Pension Protection Fund, the body established to
provide a guaranteed minimum level of pension payments to members
of eligible pension funds.
Five of the Wedgwood Group Pension Plan's 7,000-member scheme
were employees of the Museum Trust when the Wedgwood companies
became insolvent in 2009, leaving a large deficit in the pension
plan. As a result, the Museum Trust was targeted as potentially
liable for the £134 million shortfall.
Mr Young said that now the court had ruled that the collection
is not held by the Museum in trust, so the assets were available to
be sold by the administrators.
He said that while the administrators have to raise money to the
value of the collection for distribution to creditors, they would
try to do this without selling the collection, perhaps by means of
a Creditors' Voluntary Arrangement over three years, or the sale to
benefactors who would allow the collection to remain where it
is.
"We are disappointed for the trustees of the Museum who have
worked so hard to adduce evidence of the trust status of the
collection...
"This is not necessarily the end of the road for the collection
or the museum as we are exploring other options to raise money to
keep the collection in situ.
"We have already held discussions with the Heritage Lottery
Fund, the V&A Museum, certain members of the Wedgwood family
and other potential benefactors about raising funds...
"The principal creditor, the Pension Protection Fund, has
already indicated that it is prepared to consider alternative
proposals and allow time for fund raising.
"We will spend the next few months in intensive discussions with
potential benefactors and the museum trustees to try to come up
with a proposal that is acceptable to creditors."
He stressed that the company and the collection would continue
with the protection of administration for the time being and that
there were no immediate plans to close the Museum which continues
to be open to the general public.
For more information about Begbies Traynor, please visit their
website here: www.begbies-traynorgroup.com