A major shareholder in Erinaceous, the troubled owner of Shoreham airport, has demanded an extraordinary general meeting to evict the former management team.

Hedge fund Fursa, which owns a 19 per cent stake in Erinaceous and is thought to have wide support among fellow shareholders, wants to remove former chief executive Neil Bellis and chief operating officer Lucy Cummings from the board.

Mr Bellis holds nine per cent of the company's stock and remains on the board in charge of property transactions.

Ms Cummings, his sister-inlaw, has a 7.9 per cent stake in the company she co-founded with Mr Bellis in 1999.

Fursa's stake and its support makes it unlikely Mr Bellis and Ms Cummings will be able to cling to their directorships.

In a letter to the board the hedge fund said it felt progress had been made in discussions with Nigel Turnbull, who took control of the company after revelations in September that Erinaceous had breached its banking covenants.

Erinaceous shares are now valued at about 22p. The stock has lost more than 90 per cent of its value this year.

Erinaceous, which is staggering under debts of £168 million, made a pre-tax loss of just over £3 million for the six months to the end of June.

The firm, which floated on the Alternative Investment Market in November 2003 and joined the main stock exchange a year later, was on the edge of the FTSE 250 at the start of 2006, following several high-profile acquisitions. After making a pre-tax profit of £23.2 million on sales of £152 million the previous year, the one-time darling of the City was valued at £400 million.

Since then the firm has seen its share price in free-fall.

Problems began in March last year when the firm was hit by a multimillion- pound fraud investigation at one of its subsidiaries, which was quickly followed by a collapsed takeover bid for the company.

In September the full extent of the company's problems was revealed when it admitted to breaching some of its banking covenants.

Fursa's call for an extraordinary general meeting comes after Consensus Business Group, a trading vehicle for property entrepreneur shareholder Vincent Tchenguiz, confirmed it was not preparing a bid for the company.

HBoS pulled out of takeover talks earlier this year while speculation surrounding private equity firms 3i and Bridgepoint came to nothing.

There have already been a number of changes at the airport since the Erinaceous takeover in October last year.

Redevelopment plans for the art deco main terminal have been submitted to Adur District Council, while new managers have been employed and runway dimensions have been changed.

Charges for tenants have also been put up and some charges are to be introduced for previously free parking spaces near the main terminal.

A new train platform planned by Erinaceous could be in jeopardy if the takeover deal goes through. One of the airport's main tenants is Fast Helicopters - owned by Mr Bellis and Ms Cummings.