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06 Sep 2010
The administrator appointed at Calyx Group has stressed that the firm will be an appealing target for potential acquirers.
Meanwhile Better Capital, which acquired the firm's debt last week, has asserted that it is ready to assume ownership.
City of London-based Calyx was placed into administration on Friday after failing to repay a secured creditor. The Anglo-Irish firm has annual sales of about £75m but debts exceeding that.
Further reading
In the UK, Geoff Rowley and Phil Armstrong of FRP Advisory LLP have been appointed as joint administrators of the services specialist. Insolvency practitioner Tom Kavanagh of KavanaghFennell will fulfil the same role on the other side of the Irish sea.
No redundancies have yet been made at Calyx, which employs 500 people across the UK and Ireland. It will be sold as a going concern and FRP indicated it hoped to confirm a buyer imminently.
Rowley said: “The group has a solid reputation and a good customer base. As such we are hopeful of finding a trade buyer. While we undertake this exercise, the business will continue to run as normal, with no interruption to customer service.”
Rumours of Calyx's increasingly unmanageable debt levels surfaced last month and sources at the time speculated that its status as the last remaining tier two integrator made it a likely acquisition target.
The debt has now been acquired by investment house Better Capital, headed by venture capitalist Jon Moulton. This marks the second time Moulton has splashed the cash on Calyx, having back a management buy-out at the company in 2007.
Moulton told ChannelWeb his background with the business had prompted last week's investment, adding that his firm is in a position to assume ownership.
"One expects that the business will be sold to new owners over the next few days or weeks. We are certainly prepared for Better Capital to be the owners," he said. "[But the administrators'] duty is to maximise the realisation. If somebody turned up with a fantastic bid, they will have to accept it.
"We are investigating the company in some detail, having not had a huge amount of detail [up to now]. We will be taking a view as to whether we wish to invest."
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