Acting CEO of William Ball, management consultant Anthony Pratt, has spoken out for the first time on the problems that he says caused its downfall.

Speaking to kbbreview, Pratt says he was commissioned by the company's bank in early 2007 to undertake a review as, he says, the company had not made any significant trading profit since 2003/2004.

His review concluded that the company's past success had been as a kitchen components business but as that sector became increasingly competitive some form of diversification had been necessary.

"In my review, I acknowledged this but concluded that the rate and scale of the diversification that was being undertaken was too great and the risk was too high," Pratt said. "I recommended that there needed to be a much more detailed review of the entire business with the objective of refocusing it and substantially reducing the cost base."

Pratt says that William Ball decided to continue with its existing business plan and the bank withdrew its support. As the loses continued to grow the recession made a bad position worse and the cash surplus gained through a sale and leaseback deal designed to repay debt was "all consumed".

"I contacted the company in January of this year to see how things were going and very quickly realised that the position the company had reached was serious," Pratt said. "I agreed to take on the role as acting CEO to try and engineer a turnaround, but I knew from the start that it wouldn't be easy.

"Despite taking about £1.5m of cost out of the business and getting the company into a CVA, the scale of the problem proved to be too great. When businesses reach this level of distress, banks, finance companies, customers and suppliers all lose confidence and progressively withdraw their support and, in the end, this is what happened to William Ball.

"It is very sad to see a company like William Ball fail, but it is a classic case of a business that got out of its depth, didn't take advice and left it too late before it bought in help."

Pratt's comments will undoubtedly increase the antagonism between the William Ball directors and former managing director Terry Ball who blames Pratt for his redundancy and subsequent failure of the company.

He acknowledges that the company's profits fell between 1999 and 2004 and the directors agreed to diversify into branded kitchens but from 2004 to 2007 turnover fell too. Losses and further turnover drops were more significant from 2007 to 2010 after he had been replaced against his will as sales and marketing director.

"These facts show that the move to promoting branded kitchens was not the reason for the meltdown in turnover, but in fact it was the board's decision to replace [me] as sales and marketing director," Ball said.

The proposals Pratt came up with on behest of the company's bank in 2007 were rejected by the board because "his recommendations would have a detrimental effect on the company's service and result in reduced turnover." 

Ball says he invited Pratt back to the company in January of this year to help improve the company's efficiencies.

"Unfortunately after a few weeks it was clear that his business ethics clashed with mine," he said. "So he persuaded the board to make me redundant. His decisions, including my redundancy, proved disastrous."