THE company that runs an awards event promoted as the “working women’s Oscars” is being liquidated with debts of more than £100,000.

But the couple who already run the Venus Awards are planning to buy it back out of liquidation and keep going.

This year’s Dorset Venus Awards went ahead at Bournemouth’s Hilton Hotel on Friday, with assurances that everyone involved was being paid.

A resolution to voluntarily wind up Venus Awards Ltd was passed in August, shortly after its name was changed to Company 07794190 Limited.

Documents lodged at Companies House show the company owed more than £70,000 to HM Revenue and Customs.

 

It also owed £16,882 to BH Live, which operates the BIC, where the 2017 Dorset Venus Awards were held. Solent University, which hosted the 2018 Hampshire awards, was owed £10,758.

The Venus Awards were started in Dorset in 2009 by former hotelier Tara Howard, who expanded it to include 14 more regions and a national final.

Company spokesman David Frankel, who is Tara Howard’s husband, said the business ran into trouble because of difficulties with HMRC, saying the business had been on the wrong VAT code.

“We had an issue with HMRC and they wouldn’t play ball. You do this and it takes other creditors along the way,” he said.

He said the business was able to continue running awards with the approval of the insolvency practitioner. “Under the licensing agreement, they gave us a licence to continue to trade as the Venus Awards,” he said.

“If everyone that failed wasn’t allowed to come back, the economy would be in trouble,” he added.

“It’s been a horrible time for us.

 

“It’s not that there was anything untoward. It just happened.”

A report by liquidator Antony Batty & Co of London lists the company’s assets as goodwill valued at £5,000.

Tara Howard, also called Tara Frankel, previously ran the Langtry Manor Hotel with her family, and was a director of Langtry Manor Hotels Ltd, which went into voluntary liquidation in April 2017. The hotel was taken over by the Meyrick Estate in 2015.

Liquidator Dorothy Brown, of Even Keel Financial, reported in May this year that Langtry Manor Hotels Ltd had two unsecured creditors with an estimated liability of £70,300.

Tara Frankel claimed she was owed £322,131 from the business. The liquidator said she had rejected part of the claim, amounting to £22,131, and was investigating the rest.

The liquidator reported that there had been a dispute between Ms Frankel and her mother Pamela Howard, which involved the daughter making a number of allegations which the liquidator was investigating.