After the fall of the famed travel company Thomas Cook, another British tour operator Cox and Kings have now gone belly up with debts.
Cox and Kings had borrowed money from several banks to keep the company from sinking. The firm claimed that it had Rs 700 crore with it, yet borrowed money from the banks.
Even though the firm had reported a cash of Rs 2,500 crore in FY 2019, it had defaulted payments leading to bankruptcy. In 2019, things have gone in reverse gear for the firm after its stocks fell to 98 per cent.
According to the reports, a series of acquisitions had left the company vulnerable. Recently, the cash-strapped Cox and Kings had sold its corporate travel business to on-Demand software and E-commerce services Ebix inc's Indian subsidiary, EbixCash.
Cox & Kings first defaulted on commercial papers (CPs) worth Rs 150 crore in June 2019, since then, the defaults have been a recurring occurrence. Latest, the company has defaulted on payments worth Rs 30 crore on September 20, according to a regulatory filing, reports CNBC TV18.
The company had closed its Australia and New Zealand operations in September and was also struggling to book new clients in India. Many of the employees have also complained that their salaries were due from past few months.
Established in 1758, Cox and Kings is headquartered in Mumbai with offices in Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Hyderabad, Pune, Goa, Nagpur and Jaipur.
