The founder of Cabtivate, the taxi advertising firm which went into liquidation last month, has been revealed as a director of a company incorporated in the south of England three days later.

Mark Greenhalgh, founder of the Edinburgh-based Cabtivate taxi advertising firm which went into liquidation on January 22, is a director of a company incorporated in the south of England three days later.

According to documents posted at Companies House, Tapinto was incorporated on January 25 with a head office in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Its director and secretary were company registration agents based in Scotland, who subsequently resigned, and on February 21 a new director, Mark Greenhalgh, was appointed.

Greenhalgh was the founder of Cabtivate, which collapsed owing creditors around £1m, it was confirmed yesterday by liquidator Ken Pattullo at Begbies Traynor in Glasgow.

Greenhalgh had claimed last autumn that after signing up more than 100 cab drivers in Scotland and Manchester he was poised to break into the London taxi market for his in-cab advertising system.

On whether it was possible for Greenhalgh to set up a new company to carry on a similar business, Pattullo commented: "It would certainly be of concern if by doing that there was intellectual property which was transferred to another company on which we cannot make any recovery on behalf of creditors of the old company.

"That is something we are looking into."

He said that where intellectual property was essentially "inside someone's head" it was very difficult to prevent someone "just going away and setting up doing the same thing again in all honesty there isn't much you can do about it".

Cabtivate was backed by Bank of Scotland and was given a £100,000 grant by Scottish Enterprise. Its finance director resigned on December 4, seven weeks before the other directors petitioned for liquidation, and while installation of in-cab screens was continuing.

The collapse left taxi drivers in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Manchester saddled with four-year hire purchase agreements on display equipment.