Jobs go as Yellow Duckmarine company goes under
THE company behind the troubled Liverpool tourist attraction, Yellow Duckmarine, has gone into administration with the loss of 30 jobs.
Last weekend one of the amphibious vessels operated by Pearlwild Ltd sunk in the Albert Dock with 31 people on board, 27 of whom needed hospital treatment.
Hale accountancy firm Milner Boardman & Partners has been called in to the business as administrator.
The company has had to suspend operations while its directors work with the Marine and Coastguard Agency to investigate the incident. As the company has no other sources of income, the directors have taken the decision to put the company into administration.
Colin Burke and Gary Corbett, joint partners of Milner Boardman are handling the administration.
Joint administrator Colin Burke said: “The events of last weekend are well documented and the Yellow Duckmarine company has had to cease operations whist the directors, in conjunction with the appropriate authorities, investigate ways of making further safety adjustments to the vessels.
“This work will take some time and therefore, sadly, it has been necessary to make a number of redundancies today, with a skeleton staff being retained to deal with a number of administrative matters.
“The company has retained advance payments and deposits in an account designated for that purpose, and therefore customers who have pre-booked will be offered the opportunity to reschedule their trips or to have their monies returned to them. The directors remain hopeful that the business can be restarted as soon as they have completed their works,” Mr Burke added.
Pearlwild, which is based at Anchor Courtyard at Albert Dock, operated four vessels. Last weekend’s incident was the second sinking in the last few months after a less serious incident on March 31.
