EMCC director buys IP assets
A DIRECTOR of the collapsed mobile phone software business EMCC has bought its intellectual property rights.
According to a creditors’ progress report Garry Partington paid £40,000 cash and 5% of future licence revenues through his business Panaram.
Administrators were called in at the Manchester company in March after it racked up debts of £1.2m. Changes in the mobile software market were blamed for its problems which led to the loss of 90 jobs.
EMCC owed National Westminster Bank £250,000 and staff £114,000. Unsecured creditors, owed £867,000, are expected to receive a dividend at some point.
The business had offices in London and Poland and worked with some of the biggest mobile phone manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Motorola, and supplied software to Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone.
According to administrators at BDO Stoy Hayward changes at the Symbian Foundation, a non-profit foundation which “significantly” controlled the mobile software development market, had a profound effect on EMCC’s fortunes.
In June 2008 it was bought by Nokia which granted royalty free access to the software developed by Symbian. This move caused “unprecedented turmoil in the market”, and undermined EMCC, said BDO in its first creditors’ report.
A number of key projects were cancelled or put on hold, said BDO. The company started to cut overheads and launched a fruitless search for private equity cash.
During the period from April 2008 to January 2009 the business racked up a £1m loss on turnover of £4.7m. Faced with mounting debts and little prospect of finding additional finance administrators were called in and the business ceased trading.
A spokesman for Symbian described BDO’s explanation as “highly simplistic” and said other industry changes including the general decline in phone sales would have contributed to EMCC’s situation.
The business was established in 1998 by director Paul Leigh Edwards. He was later joined by fellow directors Anne Edwards, Garry Partington and Alexander Wilkinson.
