B2B Logistics rises from the ashes of Clearway
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By Roger Brown
TROUBLED Nottingham haulier Clearway Distribution, which went into administration earlier this month, has been sold to its existing management team.
As a part of the rescue deal, in which Bibby Financial Services provided inancial support, all 55 employees have transferred under TUPE regulations to a new irm that will trade as B2B Logistics.
Clearway went into administration on 5 January, with Chris Stirland and Nathan Jones from FRP Advisory appointed as joint administrators.
Stirland says: “In order to protect the underlying value of Clearway Distribution, we determined that a managed administration process would safeguard goodwill while we sought to identify a suitable buyer for the company. After marketing the business we received a number of offers, the strongest of which was from the company’s existing management.” Clearway, authorised to run a total of 90 vehicles and 90 trailers across two sites in Nottingham, ran up bad debts over several years. The company disposed of its warehousing facility at Point 28, South Normanton, Derbyshire, in the autumn of 2009 in an attempt to ease its inancial dificulties.
In December that year, it entered into a Corporate Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), with creditors deferring just over £2m of debt. However, the CVA subsequently failed in November 2011. In its inal set of published accounts, Clearway described the year to March 2010 as “the most dificult in the irm’s history”.
It posted a pre-tax loss of £1.1m, up from a loss of £219,985 the previous year, and turnover also dropped to £8.5m from £11.8m in 2009.
Stirland adds: “Despite having a strong client base and good pipeline of work, Clearway, like many haulage companies, found its proit margins being squeezed by high fuel costs. The loss of some key customers meant that the site it occupied was far too expensive to enable a successful trading business. This led to an unmanageable cash-low situation, resulting in the demise of the business.”