Yorkshire-based KBB retailer Norwood Interiors has gone into liquidation, leaving customers who had placed deposits owed tens of thousands of pounds.
Norwood’s directors and other senior staff are currently working with insolvency practitioner Charles Brook from the Huddersfield office of Poppleton & Appleby “to help find the best resolution and find a suitable buyer to take the business forward”.
A company statement explained that the original owner of the business had taken on costly additional premises in Leeds and was losing money at a rate of around £250,000 a year.
Meanwhile, weekly sales had fallen by 50% since the beginning of 2017.
In 2015, Norwood’s previous owners sold the business to a firm of turnaround specialists who wished to rescue and then grow the business.
However, in an effort to reduce costs, the new owners were forced to close the Leeds operation, transferring their contracts to the Brighouse arm with “little or no margin left in this side of the business”.
A satellite showroom in Mirfield was opened from the Brighouse company which had “a dramatic and positive impact, helping to generate new business and improving margin”, the statement said.
“Another KBB business was acquired in Doncaster with the hope of opening a new marketplace and improving margins further by utilising its manufacturing facility.”
But the company blamed a market slowdown, and the refurbishment and integration of the Doncaster business for absorbing cash flow and the Brighouse business “decided it was time to exit to concentrate on the core company”.
“However, in the second quarter, conditions worsened further with weekly sales dropping to 50% of the levels achieved earlier in the year,” the statement continued. “The order book shrank from £700k to £275k, forcing the directors to seek professional advice and with great regret it was concluded that the business could no longer trade.”