‘Maker luxury smartphones Vertu is on the verge of bankruptcy’

British luxury smartphone maker Vertu can no longer pay its extensive debts and is on the brink of bankruptcy according to court documents, according to British media. The manufacturer sold 9,000 phones last year, 84 percent less than ten years ago.

In its heyday in 2007, Vertu sold 57,000 phones a year and now sales are 84 percent lower. Vertu Corporation Ltd, or VCL headquartered in Hampshire, has a £128 million deficit as a result, according to court documents that The Telegraph has seen. The Turkish owner of VCL, Vertu AK, offers to pay 1.9 million pounds for VCL, to get the company out of insolvency proceedings. Part of the restructuring plan to allow the company to continue debt-free is to subsequently transfer the parts of VCL into a new company.

The company’s CEO, Jean-Charles Charki, reports to the court in the documents that if the reorganization plan is rejected, Vertu’s two hundred employees will be out of business. The staff was not paid last month. There are also claims that pension contributions have disappeared.

In the background is a feud over Vertu’s ownership. Former Hong Kong owner Gary Chen claims that new Turkish owner Murat Hakan Uzan has not paid the agreed price for the company. Conversely, Uzan alleges that Chen was illegally using business units.

Vertu announced its first luxury Android smartphone, the Vertu Ti, in 2013. The device cost 7900 euros and for this price buyers received, among other things, a smartphone with a titanium frame and a sapphire glass screen. The company was founded in 1998 by Nokia, which sold it in 2012. Vertu’s most popular phone was the Signature, which featured five-carat rubies, among other things.