Loggenberg defiant as more companies close

ANOTHER pair of companies owned by serial entrepreneur Saul Loggenberg are to be wound up.

Bowdon Investments Group, a group holding company with 10 subsidiaries including Steel Centre, Makin Metal Powders and web design company Radius has called a meeting of creditors to the offices of corporate recovery firm Leonard Curtis on October 11 in order to seek a voluntary liquidation of the business.

A meeting is also set for the same day to wind up another investment, Beauty Creative Ltd, which was set up last year to buy the assets of Macclesfield-based design agency One Creative last year.

Mr Loggenberg, who has recently moved to South Africa, said that Bowdon Investment Group was no longer an active firm as it had been “superceded” by a new fund, Bowdon 2, into which some previous investments will be rolled.

He said that Bowdon Investment Group was “primarily a marketing vehicle” and that he was seeking a solvent liquidation of the business.

Makin Metal Powders’ chief executive Dr John Boden stressed that his company was not part of Bowdon Investments’ Group but was a company in which Loggenberg had invested personally alongside its other shareholder Many Scenes Ltd – a company which is co-owned by Loggenberg and James Shannon.

Moreover, Loggenberg added that Beauty Creative was being wound up following a “hostile” dispute among the management team which led to a number of them joining a competitor firm.

Mr Loggenberg said there was no link between the decisions to close both of these companies and the administration of Stockport-based Clowes Printers last month or the closure of Merseyside-based engineering firm Metalbuild earlier this year.

He also said that his relocation would not mean that his involvement with business in the North West was over. He said that he retained an active interest in some 20 companies and that he would return to the UK within the next couple of weeks as he is in the final throes of buying another business.

He added that he had not drawn a salary either from Clowes or Metalbuild and that the closure of the businesses had cost him an estimated £100,000.

“I moved here on the grounds that it would provide a better life for my seven children and that I can put them through private school more affordably,” he said.

Meanwhile, around 18 jobs have been saved at Clowes Printers after administrators Leonard Curtis sold the business to competitor Glossop Cartons.

Its owner, Jacky Sidebottom, said that her firm’s purchase of Clowes Printers would bring its turnover up to around £5m and the number of people employed to 58.

“I’m delighted that we have been able to conclude the deal for Clowes so quickly, minimising the disruption to customers and the anxiety for all of the staff concerned,” she said.

“As a family-owned business, people have always been important to us and we wanted to ensure that everyone was offered an appropriate role in the new entity.

“They were and, happily, they have all taken up their new challenges.”