CLAIMS DIRECT LOSSES SET TO WORSEN

UK-based personal injury specialist Claims Direct expects to report full-year losses of £22m, after seeing no improvement in business in the second half of the 2001. The struggling firm had first-half underlying operating losses of £9m. Claims Direct’s business has fallen away sharply in 2001, following the undermining of its commercial model by a series of legal challenges and negative publicity. The firm’s problems prompted its sale in August last year — at a fraction of its mid-2000 float price — back to its co-founders, Tony Sullman and Colin Poole. The two then sold it on to Simon Ware-Lane, a private investor, for a significant profit, provoking complaints from institutional investors at their “cynical” actions.