Will Wright and Colin Haig of KPMG were appointed joint administrators of Norbain Group Limited and its UK subsidiaries on Friday, June 29. Immediately upon appointment the joint administrators completed an agreement to sell the assets of the UK business to Newbury Investments (UK) Limited. The administrators said that the deal secured the ongoing trading of the company and all UK staff have transferred to the purchaser. Will Wright, joint administrator at KPMG, said: “Norbain’s business was adversely affected by a decline in orders as customers decided to wait and see if the economy would improve before investing in infrastructure projects. The fall in income was a key factor in the company entering into administration.
“This deal marks a fresh start for the Norbain UK business and puts it on a more solid footing for the future. We received a great deal of interest from buyers keen to turn the business’ fortunes around. We are pleased that the process we ran allowed the company to avoid a full operational administration via a ‘pre-pack’, securing the UK jobs and protecting precious value.”
Barry Shakespeare remains MD of Norbain, and the distributor keeps its name. In a letter to customers, he wrote that the Norbain business under its previous ownership had ‘experienced some trading difficulties due to the economic downturn and the high level of its bank debt. I believe that under this new ownership the long term future of Norbain has been secured … I am extremely positive about the future for Norbain, and sincerely hope you will feel able to trade with us, confident in the knowledge that we now have the financial strength of Newbury Investments (UK) Ltd behind us.”
The administrators say that they will now seek a purchaser for the businesses in South Africa, Benelux and Portugal. Interested parties should contact KPMG on 0121 232 3000. Norbain is a distributor of CCTV, IP video, access control and intruder detection equipment. It is based in Reading, Berkshire, and has a distribution centre in Manchester and a national sales offices. It employs more than 250 people in the UK.
