In March 2007, the press claimed that the merger had created a debt of £30 million, about 5% of the University's annual turnover, and that the University was aiming to tackle this debt by implementing 400 voluntary redundancies. The University and College Union accused the University of mismanagement and called for a halt to recruitment. Critics use these statistics to support the claim that it was not a merger of equals, that it was effectively a takeover of UMIST by Manchester University and that this was not in UMIST's best interests.