Bulmers no more?
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And so the Bulmers business is in trouble – again. It’s just two years ago that Johnathan Bulmer undertook the highest-profile pre-pack administration in transport in living memory and, arguably, the most controversial: his longstanding firm Bulmers Logistics collapsed, owing £14m, in January 2009; almost immediately, Bulmer resurrected his business as Bulmers Transport.
Bulmer himself took a lot of stick for it – rivals and peers vented their spleens in print and to his face. A few weeks after the pre-pack was instigated, he told sister title Motor Transport that seeing “17 years of hard work” disappear was “like torture” and the moment the bank confirmed it would no longer support the business was “like a death for me”. He concluded the interview thus: “I just want to plead to people to give it a chance – let me put it right.” Well, the bank didn’t get all of its money back from Bulmers Logistics, and unsecured creditors never saw a penny. Now, Johnathan Bulmer, his staff and his creditors are regrettably going through the same nightmare for a second time.
We take no pleasure in reporting company collapses and we’re not about to observe that to oversee one collapse may be careless and that overseeing a second is foolish. It’s always a shame when a long-standing brand disappears, but the greater shame would be another short-lived resurrection.
● What concerns you most about your business? That’s one of the questions we’re asking in this month’s Trucking Britain Out Of Recession survey. We also want to know your thoughts about longer semi-trailers. Go to www.roadtransport.com/britain to take part. Justin Stanton