A WEST YORKSHIRE company has collapsed just six weeks after its managing director was acquitted on price-fixing charges at Southwark Crown Court.
Grain Storage Solutions (GSS) ceased trading and 19 jobs were lost when administrators were appointed to the Pontefract company on Friday, with its problems blamed on insufficient working capital.
Nicholas Stringer, who was appointed managing director of GSS last October, was cleared of price-fixing relating to a seven-year period when he was managing director of Barnsley company Galglass.
He left Galglass at the end of 2013 but the company collapsed in June 2014, with the loss of 150 jobs and unsecured creditors owed more than £6m.
Mr Stringer was subject to a prosecution by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for being part of a criminal cartel. The CMA alleged he had been part of a conspiracy to fix prices, divide up customers and rig bids between 2005 and 2012 for the supply of galvanised steel tanks for water storage.
His co-defendant Clive Dean, a director of Kondea Water Supplies, was also acquitted on June 24 while Nigel Snee of Franklin Hodge Industries had previously pleaded guilty to an offence under the Enterprise Act 2002. The CMA is continuing its three-year investigation and has yet to decide whether to pursue a civil action under the Competition Act.
In a statement the CMA said it “accepts that in this case the jury were not persuaded that Mr Stringer and Mr Dean acted dishonestly, and that they should, therefore, be acquitted.”
GSS was established in 2011 and designed, manufactured and installed the Brice Baker range of galvanised steel silos used to store grain at ports, distilleries, breweries and mills. Its customers were based across the UK, Europe and Australasia, and last year turned over £2.6m.
Administrator Steven Wiseglass, of insolvency practitioners Inquesta, said cashflow problems meant “the directors concluded there was no alternative but to appoint an administrator”.
He added: “Unfortunately, there has been no buyer for the business despite a number of potentially interested parties, and we have regrettably had to make all employees redundant.
“We are now looking to sell the plant, machinery, stock and intellectual property rights to recover money for creditors.”
Mr Wiseglass said the firm’s management team had embarked on a turnaround plan which involved moving its operations last December from its original base in Gamlingay, Cambridgeshire, to Pontefract. However, declining sales and problems with orders running behind schedule, which led to delays in payments, put too great a strain on its finances.
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