The two founders of Erinaceous, the troubled UK surveyors-to-buildings management group, have quit the company with a £730,000 pay-off.

The news comes as the new board of directors considers putting the business into administration to deal with its crippling debts.

Neil Bellis, deputy chairman, and Lucy Cummings, chief operating officer and Mr Bellis’s sister-in-law quit from the board of Erinaceous yesterday a fortnight after going on “gardening leave”.

Their departure has left Nigel Turnbull, who stepped up to the role of executive chairman in September, working on a strategic review with new company advisers, Close Brothers and KPMG.

A company spokesman told The Times that Mr Turnbull, along with Tim Redburn, a company turnaround specialist who was drafted in as interim chief executive this month, and Dominic Lavelle, the new finance director, are weighing up putting the whole business into administration.

A final decision on the company’s future direction will be taken next month.

Mr Turnbull had previously only told investors of a strategic review that could result in a sale of assets or business divisions to help deal with the company’s £215 million of net debt, repayable on punitive interest rates of nearly 10 per cent.

Shares in Erinaceous dipped to a new low yesterday, ending down 3/4 p to 11/4p, giving it a market value of just £16.9 million. At one stage yesterday, the shares fell 23 per cent.

In the Spring of this year, Erinaceous shares were changing hands for as much as 389p as a four-way bid battle loomed, valuing the company at over £400 million. But by August all of the potential suitors had walked.

Fursa Alternative Strategies, a New York-based hedge fund with a 19 per cent holding in Erinaceous, had called for a shareholder meeting to oust Mr Bellis and Ms Cummings who together control a 15 per cent shareholding.

That meeting has now been called off. A spokesman from Fursa said that it would now "work with the company and all stakeholders to come up with a restructuring plan."

Mr Bellis and Ms Cummings were paid salaries of £395,000 and £341,000 respectively last year and were employed on notice periods of one year. It is understood their pay-offs will be made in instalments.

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