Joint administrator Garth Callow says: “Despite previous investment in an attempt to preserve the business, the losses incurred by the Boalloy group have been sustained and significant.
“In the light of the deteriorating financial position, continued trading was not an option and these redundancies are regrettable but unavoidable.”

The firm’s last set of accounts for the year ending 31 October 2006 point to financial problems, with the firm £660,000 in the red.

But shortly after the end of the accounting period in November 2006 it was acquired by Northern Ireland metal fabricator JMF which according to the accounts promised “unlimited support to the Boalloy Holdings Group as and when required”.

At the time of the acquisition JMF’s chairman James Murray promised to “re-position Boalloy as the UK’s leading curtainsider and box van manufacturer”.

Boalloy and designer Gerald Broadbent are widely credited with coming up with the first successful tension-bodied curtainsided trailer, the Tautliner, which the administrators are now looking to sell on.
Nobody was available from JMF to comment and the company continues to trade as normal.

Problems

One company insider says that even before last year’s takeover it was clear that there were problems with Boalloy’s cashflow.

He adds: “The takeover was supposed to cement our future; instead it’s the end of an era. There were big plans but they never came to fruition – I think they [JMF] bit off more than they could chew.”

The insider says that auditors had arrived at the firm last week but staff assumed it was merely for the end-of-year accounts. He adds: “We got a bit more suspicious when we heard bills weren’t being paid, but there were no answers from senior management, then yesterday receivers came in and gave everybody notice. It’s very sad.”

Customers with orders due for delivery this month will probably see their trailers or trucks, he says, but anything further out is unlikely to be delivered completed.

He blames the company’s demise on the fact that it lost its way and competitors improved “and came up with products that were easier and cheaper to build”.

He adds: “Companies like Boalloy were probably doomed to failure in the long run anyway – no-one wants quality any more. We were caught between the devil and deep blue sea - we weren’t in mass production and were still building bespoke.

“We used to get regular orders from top companies like Stobart or Hill Hire for hundreds of units and we did the bespoke stuff on top of that. That was the bread-and-butter work, all the rest was the jam and cream on top, but it’s difficult to survive on that.”