THURROCK Council is setting aside a further £11 million to spend on financial experts to help it offload what remains of its controversial bond investments.

The council says the smooth sale of a string of bad investments that saw it facing virtual bankruptcy relies heavily on continuing to use experts to administer the complex sale in order to cut its debt burden. They will cost the council £11.1 to the end of 2025/26.

At least £30 million has already been spent on outside expertise.

The council has recovered more than £500 million from Toucan Energy Holdings, where it placed its largest investment. However, other remain locked into the Just Loans Group which was placed into administration in 2022, making recovery more difficult for the council.

In addtion to the reovery process that has taken place, the council recently confirmed it is taking legal action against against Liam Kavanagh and Rockfire Capital in a bid to get some mopre money back, but that could take years and will also come at considerable cost.

Presenting a report on the divestment programme at a cabinet meeting on Monday, Cllr Graham Snell, councillor responsible for finances, human resources and payroll, said the council needed help in selling the investment portfolio. He said: "There's been a lot of talk outside of this chamber about how much money we're spending to get this money back. It's a very technical, very complicated process and it's only right that we get the best help and assistance we can to make sure we get this done correctly.

"We didn't do that going into this. We definitely need to do it coming out."

Cllr Andrew Jefferies, leader of the council, added: "I don't think residents would forgive us a second time, or even a first time, if we didn't get the best expert advice that we can get to be able to carry out this. If we tried to do this ourselves and failed we would be rightly criticised.

"Hopefully the voices out there that are criticising this are listening and perhaps reading this report and understanding why we're doing this."

The report to cabinet said: "Given the Council's lack of expertise, experience and capacity to engage in complex administration processes, the council has used a number of specialist financial and legal advisors to protect the council's interests and work with the administrators to realise timely distributions to the council.

"They have also gathered information and undertaken investigations to inform potential litigation proceedings to recover anticipated financial losses."

It added: "This specialist resource has enabled the council to divest and/or recover amounts from companies in administration, in excess of £630million before the end of the 20 24/25 financial year with further amounts anticipated in 2025/26."

Also see: https://thurrock.nub.news/news/local-news/thurrock-council-could-get-as-much-as-ps500-million-back-on-botched-deal-but-it-has-still-lost-hundreds-of-millions-and-financial-crisis-is-far-from-over-218561