Hundreds of creditors will receive nothing from the collapse of a Fife company that had annual sales of £50 million.
Shopfitting firm Havelock Europe was one of the main employers in Kirkcaldy, with almost 350 staff.
Despite carrying out work for blue chip clients, it went into administration in 2018 with debts of £30m.
Under a pre-pack administration, the company’s assets were immediately sold for £1.15m to venture capital firm Rcapital.
This move saved more than 300 jobs but also left a long trail of businesses owed money.
Creditors left empty handed
Just over a year later, in August 2019, the new iteration of Havelock, Havelock International, also went into administration.
The reduced workforce of 247 staff all lost their jobs and almost 150 creditors were £9m out of pocket.
The administrators of Havelock Europa and Havelock International have both submitted their final reports.
From Havelock Europa’s collapse, Bank of Scotland is the only creditor to recoup any money.
As the top secured creditor, the bank received £1.33m – 27.6% of the £4.8m it was owed.
There was nothing for Scottish Enterprise, which was owed £2.8m, or the hundreds of trade creditors owed a total of £7.6m.
HMRC was also due more than £800,000.
‘Significant cash pressure’ on Havelock
In their final report, joint administrators Graham Frost and Toby Underwood, state: “The performance of the company had been depressed since 2015.
“Turnover and profitability had fallen in the two years leading up to our appointment as joint administrators.
“The company was unable to service and repay all its longer term liabilities (pension deficit and secured lending) and had to renegotiate its contractual arrangements with these creditors.
“In July 2018, supplier relationships were affected by difficulties in maintaining agreed payment plans. The seasonality and timing of new projects increased the need for additional working capital.
“The company therefore experienced significant cash pressure.
“The company reached a position where without additional external funding, it was unable to continue to trade.”
The administrators were paid £1.1m for their services.
They added: “The bank hasn’t recovered their lending of £4.8m out of their security over the company’s assets.
“However we have distributed £1.33m arising from asset realisations made during the administration.”
Millions lost by Havelock International collapse
Havelock International has also been wound up.
Invoice discounting firm IGF had a full recovery of the £1m it was owed.
However, Deasil which invested £5m secured over the company’s assets and £1.8m of trade creditors, made no recovery.
In 2019, Dunfermline-based Deanestor acquired the Havelock brands, including ESA McIntosh, out of administration.
The administrators worked with the Redundancy Payments Service to recover some of the money owed to them.