Ex-Dragon's Firm Lines Up Administrator

A cloud computing firm founded by the former Dragon's Den star Piers Linney is on the verge of appointing administrators following a frantic search for a white knight rescuer.

Sky News has learnt that the board of Outsourcery (LSE: OUT.L - news) met on Tuesday afternoon and decided to file a notice of its intention to appoint administrators.

The move, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, is subject to the approval of key stakeholders including Vodafone, with which Mr Linney has been engaged in an increasingly bitter row over Outsourcery's travails.

EY is in line to land the role as administrator, and sources say a so-called pre-pack deal is being lined up with GCI, another computing firm with links to Vodafone.

That transaction, which has yet to be finalised, will involve the sale of Outsourcery, which employs more than 100 people, minus its existing financial liabilities.

Outsourcery is publicly traded but suspended its shares several days ago, warning investors that they were likely to see negligible value realised‎ from their holdings.

The company sells cloud computing services to corporate and public sector customers, and went public three years ago.

Vodafone has twice lent money to the company to keep it going in recent months, but in a letter reported by The Times, Mr Linney is said to have blamed the FTSE 100 group for its ‎problems.

Vodafone has denied the accusation, saying it had supported Outsourcery "well beyond our usual practices".

An Outsourcery spokesman declined to comment.