Grande Holdings, the Hong Kong-listed electronics company implicated in the spectacular collapse of Akai Holdings in 2000, has fallen into provisional liquidation.
Just before Akai folded, in what remains Hong Kong's biggest insolvency, disgraced founder James Ting controversially transferred his company's valuable electronics brands, including Sansui and Akai, to Grande, court rulings said earlier.
Grande entered insolvency proceedings yesterday and has appointed FTI Consulting as its provisional liquidator, two people with direct knowledge said.
In its current form, Grande owns 40 per cent of Tokyo-listed Sansui Electric, worth 1.09 billion yen (HK$104.9 million), as well as the Akai brand. Grande also owns 51 per cent of Emerson Radio, an American electronics manufacturer listed in New York. A spokersperson for Grande could not be reached.
Grande's insolvency is likely to be related to legal settlement payments the company has been forced to make to creditors of Akai.
Borrelli Walsh, Akai's liquidators, sued Grande and its chairman Christopher Ho Wing-on, a former partner at Ernst & Young, claiming Ho and Ting had conspired to strip Akai's assets. Grande and Ho agreed to settle that case in October 2009.