ParkingEye offloaded to Capita

Capita announced today they have acquired ParkingEye for £57.5 million

Presumably ParkingEye had not warned Capita they were buying a pig in a poke; no ParkingEye cases have been upheld at POPLA when pre-estimate of loss has been questioned which means that all a motorist needs to do to get a ParkingEye charge cancelled is to appeal to POPLA on this point.

Today's court case is also significant. ParkingEye were spanked by the judge who immediately struck out the claim because it was not being brought in the name of the landowner. This renders ParkingEye's other source of enforcement, the county court, also in question.

This means the cash cow Capita thought they were buying probably does not exist.

ParkingEye are also the subject of a number of outstanding complaints with the Solicitors regulation Authority,the British Parking Association and the DVLA. Presumably ParkingEye came clean about all of these too.

ParkingEye's expected profit of £8 million in 2014 should therefore be seriously in doubt if its contracts are unenforceable, if it loses all its appeals at POPLA, if it is the subject of numerous complaints with regulatory bodies and if word gets out to motorists that this is the case.

In addition, if the profit of £8 million includes the £1.6 million raised by Rachel Ledson's highly dubious 'solicitor fee' for court filings, this will also have a large impact on their real value. The solicitor fee has been thrown out several times in court because it does not actually represent the cost incurred.

This amount may therefore be disallowed in future. This represents 1/5 of their profits, which if this carries through to a valuation, will knock £11.5 million off their value. If ParkingEye did not fully explain all of this to Capita then they may well find themselves in a tricky situation.

Happy Parking

The Parking Prankster