Corporate Travel Management (CTM), the billion-dollar travel booking company with a monopoly on our own federal government travel, is joining the long list of Australian companies to have ventured into the UK and lost shareholders’ money.
CTM’s shares were suspended in August when it first revealed it had found major problems in its books and would not be able to finalise its annual accounts. At that point, the company was valued at $2.35 billion. When CTM eventually starts trading again — assuming it ever does — that valuation will vanish in an instant after the shock disclosures last week of the size of potential losses and the reason for its problems: overcharging customers in the UK, where the company has been involved in the lucrative business of accommodating the wave of migrants coming across the Channel.
