Tycoon who flew back to USA leaving 400 workers without Christmas pay says “I’m not a Grinch”

A TYCOON who flew back to America hours before his business went bust leaving nearly 400 workers without Christmas pay broke his silence yesterday to insist: “I’m not a Grinch”

Kaiam chief executive Bardia Pezeshki spoke to The Sunday Post from his $3 million home in San Francisco to deny he was a coward after leaving Scotland just before his workforce were told they would not be paid tomorrow as expected.

Staff at technology firm Kaiam’s Livingston plant have been summoned to a meeting with administrators KPMG tomorrow to find out whether the facility has a future.

But Mr Pezeshki boarded a flight home to California on Thursday shortly before workers were told they won’t receive their December wages.

Yesterday, he admitted he “may have made mistakes” but is not a “coward or a criminal”.

He complained of the “incredible sacrifice” he has made to build the business and the “heavy toll on one’s personal life and family”.

“My wife and children feel abandoned because I dedicated so much to the company,” he said, adding: “I am not a Grinch”.

And, in a letter to local MSPs who had demanded an explanation of the firm’s sudden collapse, he added: “I know this is really painful but it was quite unpredictable.

“There is nobody chickening out or enjoying their holidays. I am not sure I deserve the humiliation that me and my family are going through.”

But his insistence that he had ploughed a fortune into the company and worked tirelessly to keep it afloat left critics unimpressed last night.

Labour MSP Neil Findlay said: “Mr Pezeshki’s sob story will ring hollow with hundreds of workers who he’s left unpaid and who will be asking the question: where is the huge windfall he received from the business deal in England?”

Mr Findlay added: “The behaviour of the chief executive of this company has been nothing short of outrageous. He has shown a complete disregard for a loyal workforce. People have been treated with contempt.”

The collapse of Kaiam came despite the sale of a plant in England for $80m last year. In May 2017 Kaiam completed a deal to purchase Compound Photonics (CP) in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, last May then sold it to optics and photonics firm II-VI for $80m (£62m) in August.

Mr Pezeshki also confirmed he got a “windfall” from that deal. However, he insisted all of the profits were put into Kaiam “to help pay wages”. He said he made “very little” from the sale.

John Jack, 54, a production operator at Kaiam’s Livingston factory, said: “Managers let it slip about the deal and we were led to believe it would secure our future. But they never spent a penny on the plant – some machines are held together with sticky tape.”