Administrators appointed for Allbury Travel Group

Administrators have now been appointed for Allbury Travel Group, the Eastern Mediterranean tour operator that collapsed last month.

Alexander Lawson Jacobs, insolvency practitioners based in Winchmore Hill, London, arrived at the group’s Hertfordshire offices yesterday to begin the winding-up process.

Administrator Sam George said Allbury had failed because the “shareholder/investor wasn’t able to put any more money into the company”.

The group was a client of credit-card processing company E-Clear, which has been accused of witholding funds from failed Scottish airline and tour operator Globespan Group.

However, the administrator said she was not aware of a link between E-Clear and the company’s collapse.

E-Clear also had a controlling stake in Allbury through one of its off-shore companies. Speaking to travelweekly.co.uk last month, E-Clear boss Elias Elia said Allbury had “surrendered its ATOL licence”.

He said the company was in a positive state financially before the collapse and described the decision to surrender the licence as “strategic” and “nothing to do with E-Clear”.

Allbury, which traded as Libra Holidays, Argo Holidays and JetLife, operated air package holidays and flights out of Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Leeds Bradford airports to Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt. It sold mainly through the trade.