TimeUK.com, a company that has taken over the business of Time Computers, will open for business again on Wednesday when it starts to take orders for its range of PCs, laptops, plasma screens and TVs on its Web site.
All the products sold on the site will be assembled at the original site of Time Computers, the Time Technology Park at Simonstone near Burnley in Lancashire, by a new company, Time UK Factory.
This follows the collapse of Granville Technology Group, parent company of Time Computers, last summer.
Brian Trevaskiss, the head of marketing of the two new companies and Time Computers, told ZDNet UK that initially "the company will have about 25 people but we plan to expand that. It just depends on the business".
Trevaskiss confirmed to ZDNet UK that the company is owned by Zia Mohsan who is listed at Companies House as a director of the company, and that Mohsan's brother, Tahir, and half-brother, Dr Tariq Mohammed, were "giving their full support to the company".
Tariq Mohammed and Tahir Mohsan were the founders of Time Computers. According to Trevaskiss, Tahir left the company "three or four years ago" while Tariq left "about 12 months before the collapse."
Tahir Mohsan is also the chairman and chief executive of Time Group Middle East (TGME). In July last year, as word spread of the collapse of Time Computers in the UK, Tahir announced a $40m investment to build an assembly factory for PCs and other electronics goods at Dubai's Silicon Oasis. Trevaskiss said that TGME "is completely separate from Time over here. I certainly don't know anything about it".
Granville went into administration in July last summer, before collapsing leaving debts of £70m and the loss of more than 500 jobs.
A spokesman for the administrators, Grant Thornton, said in January that the Time name had been sold as part of the disposal of Granville's assets, and said that the company that bought it "had nothing whatsoever to do with the previous owners".
MPs have called for an inquiry into the collapse of Granville amid claims that millions of pounds are unaccounted for.
Talkback
The brothers were still running things right up until the collapse. They may not have been directors in name, but they owned the company and called the shots. Why else would they have been on site in the days leading up to, and immediately after the collapse?
Zia had an office on site, Tariq was in on a daily basis ordering the marketing and eval staff around, while Tahir was a regular visitor, flying in for weeklong visits on a regular basis and setting up camp in the boardroom.
Dont be fooled by the statements that they had withdrawn from the company: it simply is not true. They controlled it, and they were in charge during the collapse. The reason the board resigned was that they could see the operation was going bust, and the brothers would not let them take the correct legal action.
Having had a very unpleasant experience buying, owning and requiring a replacement for a non functioning graphics card just prior to the collapse I woul not touch Time again with a very long disinfected barge pole
How can Grant Thornton sell the name etc. to the same people that owned the company that went bust. This has happened before with Time. It appears that these people can set up, take money ( £millions ) then run the company down whenever they like. Considering many millions of Granville's went into setting up another PC company in Dubai and then these people don't pay their debts of millions of pounds stinks of "FRAUD" and "DECEPTION". Before Grant Thornton sold the company back to them, they should have insisted that all debts were paid first. I believe the big question for 2006 will be, "are Grant Thornton corrupt or just incompetent?"
They are stupid enough to keep the name?
Already setting up multiple companies.
Who in their right mind would buy a Time product. Timex must be panicking as the name is very similar to their uk trading name UK Time.
They are also now calling all Tiny customers who have expired support packages and trying to sign them up to a company called totalsupport that they are advertising on their new site
I bought a time pc 2 years ago and took out a 3 year repair package,which included a reload backup disc.Now complete care has the cheek to ask £99-99 for a reload cd.Which they can make for a few pence.There ripping people off as well as Time computers that went bust.All other computer companys that sell pc to day give you a reload cd with there computers absloutly free.Any one that has anything to do with buying from Time or this other get up company, Complete care ? needs there heads looked at.I should know for the components that they use are as cheap as they can supply.I have learnt my lesson the hard way.
Mohsan you screwed what i wanted to do in life but i have picked myself up now and i hope you run out of "Time".
After buying a tiny desktop , my wife and I made the mistake of returning to buy a laptop as my wife is disabled and can`t get to the computer any more.this was a month or so before they went under but we never recieved it even though they told us that we would get some free software because of the delay. Because we paid cash(from some money my wife was left in a will) we didn`t get anything back. and now they have the cheek to start trading again. It`s disgusting and the only word for it ,FRAUD! and something needs to be done about. Oh and don`t get me started on Totalcare,Totalcrap more like
Think i will stick to buying from HP