Cpub wound up by taxman

A COMPANY which operated the Manchester Confidential and other Confidential websites has been wound up following a hearing in the Companies Court on Monday.

Cpub Ltd, which was run by Confidential publisher Mark Garner, was wound-up following a petition which was brought against the company by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs in January this year.

It is the third company to have operated the Manchester Confidential site to have entered into formal insolvency proceedings within three years – former operating company Planet Confidential was placed into a creditors’ voluntary liquidation owing £330,000 in PAYE and VAT in February 2011 and 2M:Media was wound up at Manchester County Court in June 2009.

Mr Garner still owns the Manchester Confidential website, however, which  remains live and is still trading alongside Liverpool Confidential, Leeds Confidential, London Confidential and other Confidential Group websites.

He also remains as a director of How-Do Ltd, which he bought last year in order to secure the How-Do and Place North West websites.

Since this purchase, however, How-Do founder Nick Jaspan has set up a new publishing company, Northern Publishing Ltd, which is understood to be still running both the How-Do website and its spin-off events and awards.

A statement issued by How-Do on its website last month stated that “How-Do and its related events are quite separate from the Cpub issues”.

“It is business as usual,” it said.