Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for Amigo Holdings PLC's interim results announcement for the six months ending thirtieth of September 2023. I am Danny Malone, Amigo's Chief Executive Officer, and with me today is Kerry Penfold, our Chief Financial Officer, and our Chair, Jonathan Roe. As Amigo continues its orderly wind down, I will give you an update on the next steps in this process. Firstly, I'll provide a summary of the key headlines for the first six months of the financial year before Kerry takes you through our financial position. We will then open the call to questions. Let's look first at the business headlines on slide 5 of the presentation. As I'm sure all of you on this call are painfully aware, the board took the difficult decision in March to enter the fallback solution under the court-approved scheme of arrangement.
I don't intend to revisit the decisions for this on today's call, which we have covered elsewhere, but this is the end of a long road for Amigo, having first announced its intention to enter into a scheme in 2020. I reiterate how disappointed we all were that we could not take Amigo forward and provide our shareholders, our staff, our creditors, and those customers we hope to serve with a better outcome. With the cessation of lending in March of this year, after a period of consultation with colleagues, Amigo enacted its planned redundancy program. I must pay tribute to all Amigos, past and present, who have remained dedicated and professional throughout this difficult process. In line with reduced staff numbers, in June of this year, we moved our operational center and registered office to smaller premises on more flexible terms.
This has gone hand in hand with a careful and planned decommissioning of suppliers to reduce overheads in the first half, while maintaining those services necessary to continue supporting our customers. We have continued to process claims received under our scheme of arrangement. Virtually all claims have now been decisioned, with 60% of claimants having now received their outcome. Over the next few months, we will continue to calculate remaining redress and expect to make the first payments due in early 2024, and for the scheme pence in the pound to be not less than 17 pence. We anticipate concluding the operational wind down of the business, including sales of any remaining live loans, shortly thereafter. We have agreed the sale of the RewardRate portfolio, which is expected to conclude in January 2024. Sales of Amigo Loans charged-off portfolios have commenced and are ongoing.
We expect to conclude the sale of the remaining live portfolio around the end of the financial year. In October, we announced that we had entered exclusivity with Craven House Capital and others to explore a possible transaction that could offer future value to shareholders, which resulted in temporary suspension of the shares. This unfortunately did not crystallize because the investors concluded that they could not build the sustainable revenue model that they had hoped to create in the timeframe originally envisaged. As announced on the sixteenth of November, this agreement has now terminated, and the suspension has been lifted. While all existing assets of the business are pledged to creditors in the scheme, we remain open to other potential transactions. Turning to the financial headlines.
At the 30th of September, Amigo held GBP 122 million of unrestricted cash, all of which will go to scheme creditors after operating expenses. We expect to retain ample liquidity throughout execution of the wind down plan. As anticipated, the net loan book has reduced by 70% compared to a year ago, with a corresponding 82% reduction in revenue. We have increased our scheme provision to GBP 208 million, largely as a result of an increase in our estimation of cash available to scheme creditors, and report a loss before tax for the first six months of GBP 6.7 million. I will now hand over to Kerry to take you through the numbers in more detail.
Thank you, Danny. Now, turning attention to the P&L. With revenue continuing to decline as the loan books run off and an increase in the complaints charge, Amigo has reported a loss after tax for the first half of GBP 6.8 million. We show a positive impairment charge this period, as collections are increasingly derived from recoveries on previously charged-off loans, including a successful debt sale in the period. Plus, we have had IFRS 9 release on the reducing loan portfolio.
Operating expenses are down 43% compared to prior year, reflecting reduced activity and the impact of the wind down plan. The complaints charge for the first 6 months was GBP 14.8 million, and this has largely been driven by an increase of GBP 9 million in our estimate of the amount available to pay in dividend to scheme creditors, which now totals an estimated GBP 106 million. Turning to the balance sheet, we report net assets of GBP 5.8 million at 30th of September, a reduction of 83.5% year-on-year. We expect to see net assets continuing to decline as the wind down proceeds and ongoing operational costs are incurred, with any remaining value committed to scheme creditors. With that, thank you. I will now hand back to Danny.
Thanks, Kerry. I want to spend a bit of time now explaining the next steps in the process of the orderly wind down of operations, with a particular focus on what this means for you, our shareholders. Since December 2020, the group has staved off insolvency with the scheme of arrangement. In the last three years, we have fought to build an alternative future for the business that would offer a better outcome, both for those creditors and for our shareholders. Let me say again, on behalf of the whole board, how deeply sorry we are that we are unable to raise the funds needed for Amigo to continue, and the impact that this has had on our shareholders. But as we said in March, this is a difficult time to raise new capital, in particular for our sector. This is not just an Amigo story.
Other lenders in our space have had a similar fate over recent months. You will have seen the approach received from Craven House Capital and others in relation to a possible transaction. This would effectively have seen the PLC, PLC shell be used to take other businesses unaffected by the malaise, impacting specialist consumer financial lenders to the public markets. Although ultimately unsuccessful for reasons unconnected with Amigo, we are open to other similar opportunities that could provide some value for you. For, sorry, for you, the shareholders, in future. At this stage, nothing has solidified into a firm proposal, and any transaction would of course, require shareholder approval, and you would be provided with full information before you would be asked to vote. However, as we made clear in our AGM statement, the window of opportunity is closing.
While there is nothing inherent in the scheme that requires the group as a whole to wind down, it is a legal requirement that Amigo Loans ceases lending and enters liquidation. With no other sources of income and in the absence of investment, there is simply no money available to fund an ongoing operation. This will lead to the insolvency of PLC. As we plan to finally pay out the scheme creditors and complete the operational wind down early next year, we expect this will be the tipping point. Finally, and as we have previously announced, I'm stepping down as CEO on the 31st of December as the business gets smaller and narrower. Kerry Penfold will be an able successor and well in that role. She will not be succeeded as CFO as we reduce the number in the business as the wind down. With that, thank you.
I will now open the call to questions. If you wish to ask a question, please use the Raise Hand function, and we will open your line. No questions so far? Okay. No more questions? Okay. If there are no more questions, I will now close the call. Thank you for listening.