Administrators called in to B3 Cables’ parent
THE parent company behind Manchester-based B3 Cables has been placed into administration, TheBusinessDesk.com can reveal.
B3 Industries Ltd owned the Manchester Cables site at Blackley in North Manchester, Tri-Wire in Yorkshire, subsidiaries with operations in Germany, Sweden and Spain and Blue Helix in Crawley – although the latter has subsequently been bought out by its management team.
B3 Industries has appointed Colin Haig, Paul Flint and Allan Graham from KPMG Restructuring as joint administrators.
The business was owned by members of its management team and former Aston Ventures partners Paul Ruocco, Douglas Barrowman and Tim Eve, although the biggest single shareholder was ex-Tri-Wire boss Michael Walton with just over 20% of the shares. All of the company’s subsidiaries are still continuing to trade as normal, however, and no redundancies have been made.
The Blue Helix business has also subsequently been sold as a going concern to a management buy-out team led by managing director Colin Ryall.
He said: “Blue Helix has enjoyed impressive growth since our foundation in 2003 and we have always maintained a focus on service and partnerships, the buy-back ensures that we return to our principles. It is very much ‘business as usual’.”
Aston Ventures arranged the initial buy-out of the Manchester Cables business, which traded as B3 Cables, in 2001 after its ex-US parent company Belden Cables announced plans to close the former BICC Cables site. Since then, the firm has acquired several UK and overseas competitors – most recently Tri-Wire and Blue Helix in October last year.
Accounts for B3 Industries do not contain trading figures, but the last filed accounts for Manchester Cables show a pre-tax profit of £1.1m on sales of £97.4m in the year to October 31, 2010.
The group, which employs around 150 people in total, also completed a £43.1m refinancing deal last year with US-based asset finance firm PNC Business Credit.
