The iconic travel and aviation Thomas Cook company had enough money in the cash at the time of the bankruptcy to last until the beginning of October. Peter Fankhauser draws this conclusion in a testimony about the bankruptcy of the company, which was published by the Financial Times.
While hotel owners and other creditors had outstanding claims of half a billion pounds at the 178-year-old travel empire, cash reserves had fallen to just under a million pounds. Thomas Cook had £ 31.2 million in bank accounts. “The company will run out of money on October 4, 2019, possibly earlier,” Fankhauser said.
After unsuccessful attempts to sell aviation activities, the situation became dire in the summer months. Thomas Cook, his Chinese shareholder Fosun and a group of creditors then set up a rescue plan worth £ 900 million. Later it turned out that more money was needed, but Fosun refused to cross the bridge.
Financial malaise reporting meant that suppliers wanted to be paid in advance and received an “overwhelming number of phone calls” from concerned customers. They asked, among other things, to cancel bookings. The search for new money, among others with the government and hotel owners, ended in nothing last week, resulting in the bankruptcy.
