An award-winning North East business has shut and put itself up for sale after suffering from a slump in the property market hit customer levels and left it unable to trade.
Flame Heating Spares, which has a number of sites around the North East and had also expanded into Scotland, is looking for a buyer to keep the company alive after saying a number of factors affected trade.
The company said it had initially hit trouble at the end of last year due to a downturn in the property market.
But a brief recovery was then knocked by rising fears surrounding the coronavirus outbreak.
The company has contracted the Newcastle office of business support firm RSM in an effort to find a buyer who can keep the company afloat.
A spokesman for Flame Heating said: “We experienced difficult trading conditions during the latter part of 2019, during the general downturn in the property market.
“While there was an initial rise in trade in the early part of the year, consumer confidence has again been dented by the ongoing concerns over the coronavirus outbreak.
“The business has done its utmost to make efficiencies, but this has proven difficult; we are now liaising with Steve Ross and Matthew Higgins of RSM with a view to finding a buyer for the business.”
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Flame had been one of the North East’s most hotly tipped companies in recent years, winning the Let’s Grow Award at the 2018 North East Business Awards, while founder John Savage was named National Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.
Just two years ago the business secured a £4m funding deal which triggered rapid growth and the creation of 60 new jobs.
Now the firm’s website shows that online sales are temporarily disabled.
The company, which was founded in 2011, had branches in the North East at Team Valley, Cramlington, Durham, South Shields and Sunderland, plus sites in Carlisle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.