Canute Haulage Group had been served with at least 23 County Court Judgments and owed creditors close to £212,000 in the days leading up to its pre-pack administration earlier this month.

MT has been contacted by multiple creditors of the business, including recruiters and sub-contractors, which have been left out of pocket by the company’s collapse.

In many cases creditors had been trying to recover monies owed for months with little or no success, and several had stopped working with the failed firm.

One, who claimed to be owed £7,200, told MT that after 15 years supplying Canute, the events of the past few weeks has “left a bad taste”.

The assets, contracts and associated company names of the group were sold to Almtone on the 11 May, saving 800 jobs, for an undisclosed sum.

New owner Almtone, which was registered at Companies House in September 2017, shares a common director with Canute Group in the form of Glenn Marshall.

Almtone, which continues to trade as Canute Group, is operating on interim licences. It has eight O-licence applications in progress at the Office of the Traffic Commissioner.

The O-licences give Canute’s Gamston depot as its address, and name Canute director Marshall as transport manager.

Glyn Mummery and Jeremy French at FRP Advisory have been appointed as the administrators of the ‘old’ Canute business.

The administrator had not responded to a request for comment as this article was published.