Kent-based bespoke kitchen furniture company Edmondson Interiors has announced it has filed for insolvency.
Speaking exclusively to kbbreview, founder Richard Edmondson (pictured) said he hoped to buy back parts of the business and come back on a smaller scale.
David Thorniley of Traverse Advisory LLP in Tunbridge Wells has been appointed as administrator.
“I’m hoping to buy back elements of it and re-equip myself and get going again,” said Edmondson. “I’m going to come back in a smaller form with fewer overheads and have another go.”
He explained that the company had taken a hit in October last year, when one client came across difficulties with their builder and lost a court case, meaning they had to pull an order just as Edmondson Interiors was about to start work on it.
However, he claimed that it was a more recent client that had triggered the insolvency, stating that it only takes “one poor choice of client”.
“This chap had been designing a monstrous house for himself in Bromley for a year,” he said. “He paid £42,000 for appliances, which I delivered, and then he paid a £50,000 deposit and then he cancelled the order. And it was cancelling the order that really flattened us, because we didn’t expect it and we couldn’t fill that gap. We’d spent too much time and effort chasing that one order, and that was a mistake.”
Edmondson went on offer some advice to other kitchen studios. Mistakes like these, he said, are easy to make and many independent businesses are also at risk.
“It’s not easy out there and talking to people, there are quite a few companies that are on a bit of a knife-edge. It takes one poor choice of client, which was down to me again. With hindsight you think, ‘why didn’t I look a bit deeper’, but it’s easy to say with hindsight.”