Ramage Distribution owed nearly £6.1m to unsecured non-preferential creditors when it collapsed in April, according to documents just filed at Companies House. The total deficiency was nearly £6.3m. With assets of just £380,000 to pay off the £2.8m it owed to secured creditor Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance, unsecured creditors are unlikely to see a penny. Staff were owed £343,000 in pay and pension contributions.
To date, KPMG has been unable to obtain results for the year to 31 December 2007. Furthermore, the administrators have uncovered no further reasons for the collapse beyond those given by the company's former directors: ongoing problems with low quality/poor-paying work, the loss of some major contracts and the withdrawal of credit by its main fuel supplier.
Meanwhile, two hauliers have spoken about the financial blow they suffered following the collapse of JDR Distribution three months ago (MT 1 May). Joe Bieliunas, director of Style Logistics in Manchester, and 
Pete Garvey, director of Garvey's Transport, also based in the city, were among the 122 creditors of the firm that folded with debts of at least £1.8m.
Bieliunas says his firm carried out some work for JDR in the North-West of England last year. "We are owed £16,000. It's probably going to take us a couple of years to turn things around as JDR was one of our bigger customers," he says. Garvey's company was owed just over £30,000. He says: "There is no chance of getting the money back and I know of quite a few guys who were badly hit by the collapse."