South Wales-based TWT Logistics Ltd and its subsidiary Switch International Trailers (UK) Ltd have called in the administrators just weeks after Aquila Food Group, which bought the logistics firm in 2022, went into administration.
A spokeswoman for administrators Kroll Advisory confirmed this week that both companies have appointed Benjamin John Wiles and Philip Dakin of Kroll’s office in the Shard, London, as joint administrators.
TWT Logistics Group was launched in the 1980s and specialised in time critical consignments in the print industry, white goods deliveries, home furnishings and building products.
It has a fleet of 120 trucks and 150 trailers and employed around 100 staff.
According to its website it has a 15 acre site at Duffryn Business Park in Ystrad Mynach, Mid Glamorgan in South Wales and has over 100,000 square feet of warehousing and offices, as well as a purpose built workshop facility.
Switch International Trailers (UK) Ltd operated from a three acre road and rail fed site at Andover.
The Aquila Food Group Holding Company Limited, an investment holding company, went into administration in February.
The company bought the group on 4 July 2022 from Trevor Taylor, TWT Logistics Group founder.
At the time Taylor hailed Aquila director Mark Strachan’s plans for the group as “exciting”.
In its most recent financial results for the seven months to October 2022, which included the first four months under new ownership, the company revealed turnover at £7.3m and a pre-tax loss of £26,962.
In its strategic report to the results the directors said the company had faced “exceptionally high costs and challenging business conditions.”
In its previous financial results for the year to 31 March 2022, the company delivered a turnover of £18.5m, up from £16m the previous year, while pre-tax profit fell to £276083, down from £407,695 the previous year.
The demise of TWT Logistics group comes as the sector continues to see rising insolvencies.
Matt Howard, Price Bailey’s head of insolvency and recovery, recently warned that haulage insolvencies “are rising at a rate unheard of in more than a decade”, exacerbated by high inflation and interest rates, adding that that failures “are likely to continue to rise throughout the second half of the year.”
