The Bookseller.com

1st December 2008

MPI assures B&T creditors

29.04.08

Media & Print Investments has given its assurance that none of Butler & Tanner's creditors will be left out of pocket, following the decision to put the Somerset-based printing firm into voluntary liquidation, just eight months after it bought it out from administration.

In a statement, MPI said: "Based on professional valuations, the directors believe the value of Butler & Tanner's assets far exceed its liabilities and they anticipate that following an orderly liquidation of the assets, all creditors will be paid in full and MPI will recover some or possibly all of its investment."

Around 300 employees at the firm will be made redundant with immediate effect, with just a handful of staff retained to oversee the liquidation of the company.

MPI said that it had no choice but to withdraw its financial support for Butler & Tanner, as a result of planned strikes against the company by the union Unite. It said attempts to resolve the dispute through the intermediary body ACAS (the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) had failed, with strikes due to go ahead this week until MPI abruptly opted to cease trading.

MPI chairman Mike Dolan claimed that Unite had known what MPI was proposing in advance of the company's closure, but had not believed the parent company would go ahead with folding what he said was an otherwise viable business. "It is a case of Butler & Tanner being illiquid but not insolvent. We had forecast a cashflow squeeze in April and May, which is traditionally a quiet period for Butler & Tanner. If it was not for the strike, MPI would have funded the business through to June when provisional orders indicated the business would be around 50% up on last year. Clearly the shareholders were unwilling to pour good money down what could have been a drain and they declined to make further funding available. The Union were fully cognisant of the circumstances but no doubt thought MPI was bluffing," he said.

Dolan also suggested that the planned strike action was not supported by a third of the printing firm's now-redundant staff. "100 of those people who were not even in the Union were vehemently opposed to the threatened industrial action," he said.

The union Unite claimed, however, that negotiations with ACAS were still ongoing as MPI announced the company's closure, and strongly condemned MPI's actions. "Even yesterday the union and the management were still in discussions with ACAS, with no notification that the company was about to be closed. Unite will be demanding recompense in full from the perpetrators of this despicable act, sacrificing people's jobs and livelihoods. Mike Dolan and former boss Andrew Hillman should be called to account for what they have done to the workers' jobs, their pensions and their community," said a spokeswoman for the union in a statement released at the weekend.

Printing Butler & Tanner

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