LIQUIDATORS in one of the most protracted collapses in British banking history conceded defeat this week in their battle to win more money for creditors.

More than 23 years after beginning the liquidation of the Isle of Man-based Savings & Investment Bank (SIB), and five years since creditors last received a penny, PricewaterhouseCoopers declared the liquidation closed.

The failure to find the money for a final payout infuriated some depositors, who in the end have received only 33p in the pound from the liquidation.

Gwendolyn Lamb, of Middlesbrough, who deposited £30,000 with the bank in 1982 to buy a bungalow on the island, expressed deep disappointment yesterday.

“It’s absolutely terrible,” she said. “I never got my bungalow and it’s been a nightmare ever since. But for the lawyers and liquidators it’s been a bonanza.”

Accounts show that the liquidation swallowed up £4.77 million in legal fees and £5.3 million in liquidators’ fees, bringing total costs to £11.76 million.

The 3,000 depositors and other creditors received slightly less than the total costs — £10.03 million — during the course of the marathon liquidation.

The liquidation appeared to be drawing to a close eight years ago but sprang back to life in 1997 when a retired police inspector claimed that a key debtor of the bank, Kenneth Fincken, had concealed £12 million in assets.

Then began a largely fruitless chase for the money, with the liquidators making claims over everything from a barn to a £7,500 Boss & Co shotgun which they alleged belonged to Mr Fincken.

After a litany of costly litigation, broken promises and a £150,000 bounced cheque, the liquidators eventually accepted £100,000 from Mr Fincken in July this year in full and final settlement.

“We regret to report that the costs of the Fincken litigation have so diminished the funds in the liquidation that there are no funds to pay a further dividend,” said the joint liquidators, Michael Jordan and Tim Beer, now both retired, in a letter to creditors dated last Friday. But yesterday some creditors questioned the wisdom of pursuing Mr Fincken.

Ms Lamb, a semi-retired businesswoman who has fought an indefatigable media campaign on behalf of the depositors, said the litigation had been “futile”.

Mr Jordan and Mr Beer said that after the tip-off was passed to the Isle of Man Attorney-General “we had no alternative but to thoroughly investigate these allegations”.

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