Former Stobart boss put private jets and pop star on expenses

THE former boss of Stobart expensed more than £4.5m over a three-year period travelling on private jets and helicopters while racking up huge corporate entertainment costs, which included bills referencing pop star Ronan Keating and horse racing sponsorship.

According to recently filed court documents, Andrew Tinkler spent £1.6m on premium travel between 2015 and 2018. A further £2.9m was claimed for corporate entertainment from late 2014 to February 2018.

Included were bills for £65,000 and £67,500 referencing pop star Keating on Dec 18 2015 and Dec 8 2016, respectively.

The expenses are attached to High Court filings brought by Stobart against Mr Tinkler. Both parties are locked in multiple legal battles over the actions of the ex-chief executive.

Mr Tinkler was sacked in June by Stobart amid allegations of “flagrant disregard for fiduciary duties”. He denies the accusations and claims to still be an employee and director of the company. In a separate witness statement provided by Mr Tinkler, he said the expenses were not of a personal nature but were for company purposes.

The quantum of the travel costs was “not surprising given the many sites from which the company operates nationwide”. The corporate entertainment bills were “sponsorship costs”, which Mr Tinkler said were in support of Stobart’s “well known and extremely valuable brand”.

The helicopter trips were charged to a company called Apollo Air Services, a business that is owned by Mr Tinkler, according to Companies House filings.

Alongside the two references to Keating, sponsorship costs also included individual bills of more than £100,000 for a box at Ascot Racecourse and sponsorship relating to the Irish Jockeys Association. Mr Tinkler expensed £75,000 for each of the three years on the schedule for the annual sponsorship of racing’s Flat Jockeys Championship.

Mr Tinkler said in his witness statement that the expenses were subject to Stobart’s corporate governance oversight and scrutiny by the audit committee. He went on to reference how the transactions were listed in notes to Stobart annual reports.

Meanwhile, judges heard a complex legal wrangle over Mr Tinkler’s work emails and an order from Stobart’s lawyers to return them back to the company in accordance with his service agreement. Mr Tinkler said since 2007 he had not had a personal email account and used his work address to send and receive emails “about a personal matter”. These were on a range of topics including “personal messages”, “photographs”, and “ideas and jokes”.

In June, leaked emails from Mr Tinkler’s work account revealed a sexist rant to a major shareholder attacking former Stobart executive chairman Avril Palmer-baunack. He complained that he was paid a “pittance” and “might have been better with a pair of t--s”. Mr Tinkler estimated he sent around 16,000 emails a year and received around 165,000. Around 30pc of his emails were of a personal nature, he claimed.