Crain's Manchester Business - 29 March - 2 April 2010 - (Page 1)

CRAIN’S LIST Office Furniture Suppliers Page 14 FOCUS Page 11 Green Business CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS VOL. 3, ISSUE 13, MARCH 29 - APRIL 2, 2010 CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk £2 Co-op’s solar ambitions What’s News ■ The administrators of Stockport County are expecting to receive a rival bid to the one on the table from a consortium led by exManchester City player Jim Melrose. Joint administrator Paul Reeves said a second consortium has been put together by the club’s former chief executive Sean Connolly that also includes supporters’ representative David Schofield, who has led many of the recent protests about the club’s current plight. They have been in talks with the club’s landlords, Cheshire Sports Ltd, owned by entrepreneur Brian Kennedy. “We’ve been promised that an offer will emerge within the next few days,” said Reeves. ■ A deal has been struck between the administrators of Sunfresh Claims firm collapse leaves owner ‘financially wiped out’ BY MICHAEL FAHY Altrincham-based financial claims firm Ratio Money has gone into administration. The business, owned by founder Matthew Porteus, has appointed Bury-based insolvency firm Leonard Curtis. Administrators have also been appointed to Porteus’s other businesses, recruitment firm Ratio Search. Porteus said he was forced to call a halt because the business ran out of money. He said he had been expecting a payment of around £200,000 from a funder in March, which still hadn’t materialised. “I’m definitely not riding out of here with a load of money,” he said. “My reputation is going to be crap and I could be made personally bankrupt. I’m a 35 year-old guy who has gone from looking at having a business that was going to provide financial security for my son to being financially wiped out.” Ratio Money was set up in February 2007 initially to handle cases for people who wanted to reclaim bank charges. It then moved into the market for unenforceable credit agreements and took on thousands of cases on which it charged an upfront fee of £295. SEE RATIO, PAGE 18 Bakers (Ashton-under-Lyne) Ltd and its former owners which is expected to save 200 jobs. Sunfresh’s bankers, Leumi ABL, appointed administrators MCR on March 16 when it emerged that owners Mark and Stephen Taylor had sold the firm’s assets to a new company which they also controlled. The sale left the old company with liabilities and was made outside of a formal insolvency process. The bank has agreed terms with the brothers which will see them pay more for the company’s assets, as the bank thought they had not been sold at a “fair value” originally. Sunfresh, founded 30 years ago by Stan Taylor, makes more than 40 million oven-bottom muffins for supermarkets. The new company now trades as Taylors the Bakers. No directors were available for comment. ■ Paul Beck, the founder of Altrincham-based outsourced call centre firm LBM, has seen his sports hospitality business Front Row Events collapse for a second time in six months. Front Row Manchester Ltd, the vehicle which Beck used to re-purchase the assets of his previous venture following its administration in September, has gone into liquidation. As part of the deal to buy back the business, the company took on £355,000 of liabilities, including trade creditors such as Boris Becker & Co, which looks after the licensing and personal appearances of the former tennis star. If Beck did not meet the debts within six months he was liable to make a £42,000 payment to administrators The MacDonald Partnership. Baines and Ernst Corporate was appointed liquidator last Friday. ■ Ralph Capper Interiors has been appointed as furniture consultants & suppliers for the Peninsula project in Manchester, which will contain the new headquarters of Antler mulls pre-pack to shed pension liabilities BY JAMES CHAPELARD Luggage brand Antler Holdings Ltd is likely to undergo a pre-pack administration in order to jettison a huge pension liability before it is sold to private equity firm LDC. This means that the taxpayer would have to pay the scheme’s beneficiaries through the governmentbacked Pension Protection Fund. According to Antler’s 2007 accounts, the last available, the £9.9m pension fund had a deficit of £437,000, but this is certain to have widened sharply due to the 2008/09 stock market collapse and actuarial revaluations. Any pre-pack which dumps the liability onto the taxpayer will raise eyebrows politically because LDC is part of the government-controlled Lloyds Banking Group. Nighat Awan and the Shere Khan in Rusholme CHARGES DROPPED Awan family says people trafficking probe has cost them £2.2m BY MICHAEL FAHY picion of working illegally and conspiracy to facilitate illegal immigration. Now, however, the CPS has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with any charges. The most serious offence which police reported them for — trafficking people for exploitation contrary to section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004 — carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years. Chairman Rafique said they had suffered an agonising wait to have their names cleared, during which time their 23-year-old food empire nearly collapsed. He estimates that he and his family have lost £2.2m as a result of the raids. The number of restaurants Unhappy LDC is expected to acquire the Bury-based company for between £10m and £20m, following interest from more than 20 bidders including turnaround specialist Endless and NBGI Private Equity. Rival bidders are unhappy that Lloyds TSB, Antler’s bankers, have tipped the scales in favour of LDC. Barclays Private Equity acquired an 80 per cent stake in Antler from Royal Bank of Scotland when it backed a £44m secondary buyout in 2004. People familiar with the situation say that taking the firm through an insolvency process is one of the options being considered to complete the deal. T SEE WHAT’S NEWS, PAGE 2 he Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to prosecute the owners of the Shere Khan restaurant chain after a three-year police investigation into alleged people trafficking. Shere Khan Group, owned by husband and wife Rafique and Dr Nighat Awan and their son Atique, was raided in February 2007 as part of a co-ordinated operation known as Operation Chalice, which was led by Merseyside Police. A total of 14 addresses were searched, including the homes of its directors and of a solicitor, Mohammed Suleman, who advised the Hale-based company on immigration. In total, 69 people were arrested on sus- SEE KHAN, PAGE 18 SEE ANTLER, PAGE 18 Leading Page 3 THWAITES BLASTS PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM FOR ‘DESTROYING’ LATITUDE http://CrainsManchesterBusiness.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Manchester Business - 29 March - 2 April 2010

Crain's Manchester Business - 29 March - 2 April 2010