THE future of the financial boss of struggling holiday firm MyTravel looked increasinly bleak after the company revealed a potential £50m black hole in its accounts.

Outraged investors in the Manchester-based company - reeling after the value of shares dived 90 per cent since February - are said to want heads to roll, including that of finance director David Jardine.

One shareholder said that he had no faith in anything to board told them because everything they said turned out to be wrong.

Mr Jardine is a former partner at accountancy firm Andersen, which until recently audited the books at MyTravel, the UK's largest package holiday firm.

It has now emerged that there have been problems at MyTravel's UK financial centre in Rochdale, where a new computer system has been used for the first time to complete the accounts.

It has been discovered that another £12m will be lopped off by worse-than-expected trading, because the firm had over-estimated profits and under-estimated cost, said a spokeswoman.

Misallocations

A further £8m shortfall has been blamed on double-booking cash in two accounts at the centre. The spokeswoman said it was a "good system" but "human error" and the inexperience of managers dealing with it had caused the "misallocations".

At its annual meeting in February this year, David Crossland, founder and chairman of what was then Airtours, strongly defended Andersen as shareholders called for them to be ditched in the wake of the Enron scandal.

Later, replaced Andersen with Deloitte and Touche, who required a change in accounting policy which, it was revealed two weeks ago, would lead to a £15m shortfall in profits.

Yesterday, MyTravel issued its third profits warning in five months and scrapped in final dividend, when it emerged that the size of the downgrade would be even worse - up to £50m of which £15m-£30m will be due to a switch to more conservative accounting policies.

Now MyTravel has postponed its £250m syndicated loan. Four banks involved in the refinancing have put off negotiations on the facility.

Last week, chief executive Tim Byrne was ousted and David Crossland, who was due to retire as chairman next month, was back in charge. Yesterday, Peter McHugh, who was appointed to the board two years ago and was previously boss of Holland America, was appointed as chief executive.

But the group, whose brands include Cresta and Going Places, insists sales are better than ever.

Shares in the company which was valued at £2.5bn a couple of years ago, crashed to 17p, yesterday, but rallied slightly today in early trading to around 27.25p.

Manchester Online

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002