The Bookseller.com

2nd December 2008

End of the line for Butler & Tanner

25.06.08 Jo Young

 Time has run out for Somerset printing firm Butler & Tanner, which has failed to attract a bidder willing to take it on as a going concern. Property management company Edward Symmons this week completed the sale of the firm's assets to individual buyers after a last-ditch m.b.o. bid from former employees collapsed. Equipment including printing presses, binding machines and office equipment was sold off to online bidders for prices that, according to the company's administrators Hacker Young, "were anything from £30 to £100,000".

Kevin Sarney, a former director of B & T, had led an m.b.o. team in negotiations to take over the firm after it was closed by parent company MPI over a dispute about industrial action, but talks fell through last week.

The closure of the 150-year-old company left 287 staff members out of work, many of whom started proceedings against the firm in the High Court in May in pursuit of lost wages. Peter Kubik of Hacker Young said that staff claims had been passed to the Redundancy Payments Office, a government body that compensates workers from failed businesses.

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