Shareholders in Carter & Carter, the motor manufacturing training company worth £530 million a year ago, will be left with nothing, the company's newly appointed managers said yesterday.

Deloitte & Touche, appointed as company administrators last week under pressure from Carter & Carter's bank lenders, gave the warning as investors were told their shares would be cancelled when stock markets open on Tuesday. Thousands of members of the Corus/British Steel pension scheme will be affected. The scheme is one of Carter & Carter's largest investors, with a 2.95 per cent holding that was worth £15.6 million a year ago.

The company's demise comes after three profit warnings that followed the death of Phillip Carter, the company's founder and chief executive, in a helicopter crash last May. Mr Carter's widow, Judith, a former schoolteacher, was left with her late husband's 21 per cent company shareholding, worth some £111 million at its height. Probate records reveal that Mr Carter left an estate worth over £123 million and his will stipulated everything should be left to his wife.

Fidelity International, the UK arm of the global investment fund with tens of thousands of retail investors, is Carter & Carter's second-largest shareholder. It has seen its 12 per cent stake fall from £63 million to nothing.

Rodney Westhead, who worked as Mr Carter's non-executive chairman, took over executive control of the company after his death. Executive power has now been handed over to Deloitte.

Carter & Carter's latest accounts for the year ending July 31 remain under investigation by forensic accountants and two sets of City law firms.

In a statement to the London Stock Exchange yesterday, Carter & Carter said: “The affairs, business and property of the company are managed by the joint administrators.”

The Nottinghamshire-based company acts as the training arm of car manufacturers including Volkswagen and Ford, providing apprenticeships for would-be mechanics and the jobs of many of it's 2,000 staff are at risk. It is paid directly by the Learning and Skills Council, a government agency, and relies on support from the Department for Work and Pensions.

Deloitte said that it was working with both agencies “to secure the survival of the group's businesses. The joint administrators do not expect any value will be returned to the company's shareholders out of the administration .”

Deloitte has appointed Nicholas Dargan, Dominic Wong and Christopher Farrington to act as joint administrators to manage Carter & Carter after the company's lenders, Barclays, Lloyds TSB and HBOS, pulled the plug on restructuring talks.

Shares in Carter & Carter were suspended in October. PricewaterhouseCoopers, Carter & Carter's auditor, was subsequently called in to check on its accounting methods.

In February, Carter & Carter said it had hired City law firms Herbert Smith and DLA Piper to “undertake investigations into the group's operations”. That followed the admission in October that it was “assessing the recoverability of certain assets at July 31, together with the accuracy of certain revenue streams in the business”.

Mr Carter, an honorary vice-president of Chelsea Football Club, sold a 47 per cent stake in the firm to venture capitalists in 2001. The company floated on the London Stock Exchange in 2005 netting Mr Carter a fortune.

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