New life breathed into aircon firm after pre-pack
A HANDFORTH-based air conditioning specialist has said that its future is “looking bright” following a pre-pack administration deal which has thus far recouped around £120,000 for creditors.
EPT (formerly Indair) employed 14 people offering air conditioning and data centre services from its Handforth Headquarters. At its peak more than ten years ago, the company had achieved sales of £3.8m but in recent years it had been dogged by shareholder disputes and by morer than £100,000 of bad debts from clients.
Finance director Colin Holliday said: “A bitter shareholder dispute emerged in early 2008 and in April 2010 we also discovered that a senior staff member with 12 years’ service had been stealing a substantial amount of money over a five-year period.
“We were tied in to various long-term leases on fixed assets that we no longer required, so without any cash investment, we were effectively trading whilst we were insolvent.”
The firm appointed Old Trafford-based The Business Debt Advisor as administrator in July 2010 and the business and assets were sold to EPT.
The Business Debt Advisor said that creditors have since recouped 27p in the £1, and that the company now has a strong board of directors.
Its managing director, Bev Budsworth, said: “This was a particularly complex case. The long-term disruption of the ongoing shareholder dispute and the ongoing legal costs had had a significant impact on both the company’s performance and net profit.”
Mr Holliday added: “A year ago, the situation was bleak but following the advice from The Business Debt Advisor, we were able to retain the good things about the company, keep the skills in-house and safeguard the jobs of all our employees.”
