B Taylor & Sons closed down because it had no contracts with customers and was blighted by having significant numbers of vehicles off the road with maintenance problems, its administrator said.
The Nottinghamshire haulier, which was established in 1974 and incorporated in 1983, was forced to appoint BDO to handle its affairs on 9 June after “an imminent cash requirement”.
It traded out of five premises in the country, employed 91 staff and operated around 94 HGVs.
It was also a member of several pallet networks.
The former family-owned business had been sold to private investment firm Chiltern Capital in October 2024 and, according to BDO, it soon became apparent to the new owners that there were significant operational issues within the company.
“These issues significantly impacted the company’s trading performance and Chiltern, along with new interim appointments across the wider management team, set about making operational changes to the business in order to rectify a number of issues,” the administrator said in a report to creditors.
“These included removing less profitable contracts and dealing with a significant number of vehicles which were ‘off road’, to enable the profitable order book to be fulfilled and increase capacity to support the growth of the pipeline.”
Across its haulage and warehousing work there were no contracted customers, meaning revenues generated were “variable and unpredictable”.
BDO added that rates had also not been increased for a number of years.
B Taylor’s creditors are estimated to be owed just over £11m; it is currently understood that they will not see any of the money owed to them.
