A number of estate agents are among the creditors owed a total of over £1.6m by Fairfield Displays & Lighting.
The collapse of the firm is blamed on a decline in orders from estate agents this year and last, and the Brexit vote, and its impact on exchange rates, which resulted in costs rising. The firm had used suppliers from abroad.
The firm, which specialised in supplying estate and letting agents, went into liquidation this autumn and a new report by the liquidators lists 138 creditors, owed £1,655,983.
The creditors include agents who had presumably paid deposits for orders that they did not receive.
The biggest creditor is the taxman, owed over £200,000. HMRC (VAT) is owed £103,500 and HMRC (PAYE) is owed £89,600.
Another creditor is Hart District Council, owed £5,553. Fairfield had its offices in Fleet, Hampshire, where the council is also headquartered.
NFoPP is another creditor, owed £2,193, as are trade publications The Negotiator, and Property Industry Eye – owed £3,720 and £2,070 respectively.
The former owners of Fairfield are also listed as creditors, with Geoffrey Fairfield owed £212,105 and his wife Janice owed £7,260. The pair had apparently pumped pension money into their long-standing business in a desperate attempt to keep it afloat.
Joint liquidators Alan Simon, of AABRS, and Jamie Taylor, of Begbies Traynor, say in their report that the firm’s liquidation was “significantly more complex” than had first been thought.
Accounts for the period ended December 31, 2015, show Fairfields made a profit of just £30 on turnover of £4,472,223.
The year before, on similar revenues, it had made a post-tax profit of £70,652.
The Fairfields are well-known figures in the industry, starting from home as sole traders in 1979, supplying signage. In 1992 they formed a limited company, and purchased the premises in Fleet the year after.
Their company innovated into digital signage and display systems and expanded via subsidiaries into America, Holland and Germany.
Fairfield, whose clients included Savills and Marks & Spencer, continued to expand until 2014 after coming through the recession of 2008, when the company “suffered a significant decrease its volume of sales”, according to the report.
However, in 2015 the company “began to experience difficulties as a result of a decline in orders from their main source of work, being estate and property agents”.
This year, says the report, there was a further decline. Quotations for work had to be more competitive.
To try and keep the company going, the Fairfields cut their marketing budget, tried to source cheaper stock made in the UK, and made a number of redundancies. The Fairfields themselves also put in extra funds from the pension fund.
They also took out bridging loans totalling £260,000, on top of an extra bank advance from HSBC.
Meanwhile the Fairfields had tried to sell their company to one of their suppliers, Solutions Acrylic & Display. An offer was made but the sale fell through because the buyer did not want exposure to liabilities under TUPE.
On October 21, Fairfield ceased trading and went into liquidation.
Five offers were received for various assets of the company, including one for £75,000, which has gone ahead.
The building that housed Fairfield has also been sold, for what looks like a knock-down price of £775,000.
Comments (3)
This is ridiculous, we have used Fairfield previously for a couple of offices and they were always the market leaders certainly weren’t the cheapest but definitely had the best quality.
Upon hearing the news I spoke with our previous consultant and it seems lots of staff have been left unpaid by this company and they knew nothing about these so called troubles, in fact they said its been quite busy still. They also confirmed that a lot of the goods came from above mentioned uk suppliers.
Pleased to hear that the 2 previous people I have dealt with from there have now found jobs, hopefully with employers that reall y will look after them now…..the difficulty is which one i deal with in the future….good luck J & N and all the best to anyone let down by this company
Blaming Brexit? They’ve accumulated that much debt to 138 creditors in a few months have they, what nonsense.
I recently went to a meeting through the federation of small businesses with the local Bank of England representative. It’s quite clear that the BofE is very concerned about the lower productivity in the U.K. compared to other countries. I think one of the biggest reasons could be that there are numerous ‘zombie’ companies out there that have never had a proper chance to recover after the banking crisis 8 years ago followed by years of enforced austerity. They are teetering along on ‘life support’ until just one more economic jolt finishes them off. I wonder if this was the situation with Fairfield. Great shame……for both the founders and especially the long term employees.