Though a perfectly legal manoeuvre, both the directors and administrator BDO Manchester have provoked anger from the voice of the UK crane industry, Vertikal.net, a website owned and run by Leigh Sparrow of the well-known Sparrow crane dynasty.
Bryn Thomas Crane Hire’s two directors, Dylan and Janus Thomas, set up new companies last year - Bryn Thomas Cranes Ltd and Bryn Thomas Holdings Ltd. These companies have been confirmed by BDO as the buyers of the majority of the business and assets of Bryn Thomas Crane Hire Ltd.
BDO said that it had undertaken “an extensive marketing exercise”. However, the “marketing” does not appear to have extended to any other potential buyer. Few in the UK crane industry were even aware that the company was in administration until they read about it first on The Construction Index and later on Vertikal.net.
Vertikal.net was unable to find any potential buyer that had been approached by the administrators, although many said that they would have been interested.
“The way this transaction was conducted is a scandal. Perfectly legal – not unusual - but a scandal all the same,” thundered Vertikal.net. “While the Thomas family has used the rules to save its business - something that we all might do if we were really up against the wall and saw no other way out - the administration rules and its practitioners have once again produced a result that just does not seem quite right.
“BDO will be charging fat fees for running the administration which will very rapidly eat into any funds available for creditors. In fact if the administration runs along the usual lines, it will find an arrangement with the preferred creditors – usually the banks (who may have forced the administration in the first place) and then take the rest of the cash in the form of fees.”
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