Failed events caterer is reborn with new name
By David Shrimpton
Events firm Alexander Catering Ltd has gone into creditors' voluntary liquidation with debts of £420,000 but the management has launched a new company from the ashes of the old.
A meeting of creditors was called last week, where it was revealed that the firm owed £110,000 to preferential creditors and £311,000 to ordinary creditors. The sale of assets is expected to realise only £173,000.
The biggest unsecured creditor is Customs & Excise, which is owed more than £100,000 in VAT. Suppliers are owed anything from a few pounds to several thousand. One attendee described the mood of the meeting as "ugly".
Alexander catered at several prestigious venues, including livery halls in the City of London and the Farnborough Air Show.
Martin Cummings, director of the firm and, separately, proprietor of Amberley Castle hotel in West Sussex, is owed more than £35,000 as a private investor. "We have thrown an awful lot of money at [Alexander Catering] over the years and the profit margins were almost imperceptible," he said.
Draft figures revealed at the creditors' meeting show that Alexander made pre-tax losses of £53,000 in 1997 on turnover of £2.83m. While it made nearly £50,000 in 1996, the firm lost money in both 1995 and 1994.
A new management team, led by Brian Turner, former chief executive of London Catering Services, was put in place a year ago. "They did extremely well," Cummings said. "But it was too little, too late."
Impending litigation over an incident in 1995, when the firm pulled out of a deal with Croydon council in south London, was another major factor. Turner said the firm had been advised it could not defend its position. It faced a bill of between £80,000 and £160,000.
Turner and operations director Nick Burke have now taken over the company's four remaining fixed-site contracts and are running them under the new name of Alexander Catering Events Ltd, operating from the same office.
