Former Carillion finance director disqualified for 11 years

Former Carillion finance director disqualified for 11 years

The former finance director of construction outsourcing firm Carillion, Zafar Khan, has been disqualified from acting as a company director for the next 11 years due to his role in misrepresenting the firm’s financial health and sanctioning unwarranted dividends.

The ban was confirmed by the Insolvency Service, which highlighted that Mr Khan allowed Carillion to base their financial decisions on falsified financial information in 2016.

Consequently, this led to a severe misrepresentation of the company’s financial position, affecting the value of key construction contracts. Instead of a pre-tax loss of £61.7m, the firm declared a pre-tax profit of £146.7m – a staggering overstatement of £208.4m.

Mr Khan’s actions were pivotal in misleading the markets via two statements released in March and May 2017, thereby painting a deceptive picture of Carillion’s financial health and potential. Furthermore, he authorised an unjustifiable dividend payment of £54.5m to shareholders in June 2017 based on these manipulated financial reports.



KPMG UK, which was Carillion’s auditor, is also under investigation by the FRC. Earlier this year, the big four firm settled a £1.3 billion civil lawsuit with Carillion’s liquidators for an undisclosed sum.

Share icon
Share this article: