WaverleyTBS was owed £26.5m by trade debtors

16-Nov-2012 - Last updated on 16-Nov-2012 at 08:44 GMT

WaverleyTBS was owed £26.5m by trade debtors at the time of its collapse last month, of which it is estimated that only £15m will be paid.

Furthermore, the value of outstanding trade debts was offset against £10.5m of confidential invoice discounting (CID) liability – meaning that Waverley had raised finance against the value of its invoices. So only £4.5m of the £26.5m will be available for creditors.

In total, £9.7m of Waverley’s £72.6m total assets are estimated to be available for preferential creditors. And just £600,000 of assets will be available to the company’s unsecured creditors – who were owed £64.6m. This would represent less than 1p in the pound.

Almost 200 trade creditors were owed a total of £40.5m, while Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs had tax claims of £11.9m against the company.The summary of assets provided by Waverley’s directors in the Notice of Statement of Affairs includes £2.8m of land and buildings, £2m cash at bank and £1.3m of plant and machinery.

Nearly £20m was owed to the business by an intercompany debtor, and £12.9m was given as the value of stock, approximately £10m-worth of which is the subject of retention of title claims.

Deloitte has said it is unable to reveal the identity of Waverley’s debtors.

Separately, drinks company Hi-Spirits has revealed it was protected from a six-figure loss following the collapse of Waverleythanks to its debtor insurance cover.

The business, which markets and sells premium spirits brands including Antica Sambuca, Vodka One, Louche Absinthe, Montezuma and Firefly, was owed £103,050 when Waverley went into administration last month.

Hi-Spirits chairman Jeremy Hill told M&C Report: “When the economic downturn started having a significant effect on the pub sector we considered what the impact would be on our business if a large wholesaler went bust. In our previous 10 years we had never had a big debt go bad, but we took the decision then and there to insure our entire sales ledger.

“Obviously, there’s a substantial cost associated with debtor insurance, but in a situation like this, the decision was clearly the right one. Whilst eliminating debtor risk was primary in our decision I must say that the peace of mind that the insurance gives us has also proven to be a significant factor.”