The saga of Norton Motorcycles under its most current ownership is a bit like an onion, only shedding its layers with a bit of scraping and effort and making everyone cry who attempts it. As an example, SuperBike Magazine just published its most recent chapter in the saga, which is a detailed breakdown of the full BDO creditors report about what kind of money Norton owes, and to whom.
As previously stated, if you aren’t already following SuperBike’s deep dive into the alleged trials and travails of one Stuart Garner, you probably should. For anyone who isn’t familiar with the entire process of administration, creditors owed money by Norton Motorcycles generally fall into three groups. In order, from most important to least, they are: Secured Creditors, Preferential Creditors, and Unsecured Creditors.
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In more basic layperson terms, those categories roughly translate to: banks that loaned Norton money, Norton’s employees (there were 64 at BDO administration time, but there are now 58 since some employees have since resigned), and all those poor sods that put down deposits on bikes and will probably never, ever see their money back.
That’s not including Norton Motorcycles shareholders, which legally slot in behind everyone else. The grand total owed, as calculated by that publication, is £28,352,089, give or take. Norton had less than £300,000 in its bank accounts when it went into administration, which of course goes to the Secured Creditors (read: Metro Bank) first of all. You’ll need to read the full Superbike piece to see exactly how much was owed by Norton to which type of creditor. Rest assured that with that amount to the company’s name, not a single creditor that isn’t a Secured Creditor will likely see a single pound.
It’s also not clear where the pensioners who appear to have lost their life savings within those Norton pension funds fall into this scheme, either. Hopefully that will become clearer as the UK pensions regulator investigates the matter.
If you’re thinking that this entire business sounds completely disgusting, you’re not alone. Another creditor who will likely never see the money owed them from this sad enterprise is road racing legend John McGuinness, who allegedly never got paid for his brief stint racing for Norton. Luckily, motorsports photographer Gruff’s Studio reached out to McPint and got him to sign a very special photo for them. It then auctioned said photo off, with proceeds to benefit one brave little girl named Eva’s fight against the rare, inoperable childhood cancer known as DIPG. The auction ended on March 26, 2020, but you can view the lovely photo print as signed by McGuinness below.
That’s using this incredibly infamous blight on the historic Norton name for the power of good. Every day, we will continue to live in hope that some justice is done for those who were most hurt by this era of mismanagement.
Source: SuperBike Magazine