PONTEFRACT manufacturer Grain Storage Solutions (GSS) owed £2m when it collapsed in July, new documents have revealed.
Administrator Steven Wiseglass, of insolvency practitioners Inquesta, closed the company when he was appointed on July 22 and 19 jobs were lost.
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.
The company struggled badly between September and December last year as “there were hardly any sales revenue putting the business under further strain”. Cashflow was further hit by the cost of reworks and penalties caused by errors and delays.
GSS had lost £720,000 in the 16 months to August 2014 and management accounts showed a further loss of £240,000 in the nine months to May 2015.
Mr Wiseglass expects there to a “small dividend” available for unsecured creditors. Barclays Bank, a secured creditor which had provided a £25,000 overdraft, has been repaid in full, while Amada Leasing, which had a hire purchase agreement in place, is expected to recoup around three-quarters of the £438,000 owed by taking back the asset.
The company’s managing director, Nick Stringer, also faced a challenging few months personally as he was the subject of a a prosecution by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for being part of a criminal cartel when he was managing director of Barnsley company Galglass.
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. He was cleared of price-fixing and his co-defendant Clive Dean, a director of Kondea Water Supplies, was also acquitted.
