Troubled Beta Distribution has gone into administration.
Deloitte has confirmed that Clare Boardman and Richard Hawes, restructuring partners at the company, have been appointed as joint administrators of the £180 million revenue outfit.
Boardman said that Beta had been experiencing increasing competition in the consumables market and this has placed it under a degree of liquidity pressure.
“It is a large importer of products from Europe and has, amongst other pressures, experienced issues with foreign exchange rates. Despite interest from a number of parties, no sale of the overall business was achieved and the directors took the decision to place the business into an insolvency process”, she said.
For its financial year ending 31 March 2017, London-based Beta saw turnover of £186 million and net profit of £950,000, but last month extended its current accounting period.
This is the third big distribution bankruptcy in as many years following the collapse of Steljes in 2016 and Entatech in 2017. In fact Entatech was nearly bought by Beta at one point.
Deloitte stressed that the outfit’s Belgian arm, Beta Distribution BV, is not subject to any insolvency process and continues to trade, .
