£100m SpinVox investors get £600 from sale

Investors who pumped more than £100 million into technology firm SpinVox will receive a total of just £600 from its sale.

American rival Nuance Technology paid $102.5 million (£64 million) last month for the company, which converts voicemails into text messages. But SpinVox's ordinary shareholders, including founders Daniel Doulton, a scion of the Royal Doulton pottery dynasty, and Christina Domecq of the Domecq sherry family, will collect nothing.

In a letter to shareholders, SpinVox said: "A total of around £600 was paid for all the shares, with holders of A shares being paid in priority to ordinary shareholders. Ordinary shareholders received no payment for the transfer of their shares."

Most of the proceeds of the sale have been used to pay off emergency loans given to SpinVox when it came close to collapse last summer.