Bertram Trading Limited (06849888): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2020-06-19
- Administrators
- Martin Charles Armstrong, Andrew Richard Bailey
- Administrators' firm
- Interpath Advisory
- Formerly
- Smiths News 2009 Limited
- Incorporated
- 2009-03-17
- Location
- Sutton
- Industry
- 46900 Non-specialised wholesale trade
Why it went into administration
- COVID-19
- Creditor pressure / legal action
- Property / lease costs
- Competition / price pressure
- Supply chain disruption
- Funding withdrawn / unable to refinance
- Bad debts / customer insolvency
- Sustained trading losses
From the administrators' statement
Creditors should note that, unless otherwise stated, this section of my proposals has been prepared based on information provided to me by the directors of the Company and not from my personal knowledge as Joint Administrator. a, BTL forms part of the Bertram Group of Companies (“the Group”) and was incorporated on 17" March 2009. A copy of the Group structure (prior to any disposal of Group companies in March and April 2020) is attached at Appendix 2. :
The Company was a leading B2B book wholesaler and sold to retailers in the UK and overseas, supplying both the high street and online. Online customers included Amazon whilst high street customers included WH Smith and Waterstones. BTL held strong relationships with publishers both within the UK and globally and served a number of blue-chip customers. BTL also supplied Wordery, EUL and DBL. DBL is a wholly owned subsidiary of BTL and is inextricably linked to BTL through a single management team, head office, and back office systems.
The Company occupied and traded from a 185,000 sq. ft. premises at 1 Broadland Business Park, Norwich, Norfolk, NR7 OWF (“the trading premises”) at an annual rent of circa £1.2m payable monthly. There were two separate leases for the property held by the Company, as follows:
Administrators' statement of proposals (2020-09-02) · Companies House register