A Devon machine building firm that can trace its roots back to the 1930s has collapsed into administration.
Meddings Thermalec offered swimming pool heating systems, metal fabrication services and engineering machinery, but had struggled with sales, increased overheads and stronger overseas competition in recent years.
The Ivybridge-based company has appointed Michelle Weir of Lameys as administrator and has ceased to trade. The company's assets have been put up for sale and all of its 19 staff have been made redundant.
Director Peter Meddings, grandson of the original founder William J Meddings, said: "I would like to thank all of the customers, suppliers and former staff of Meddings for everything.
"Since I became a director in 1993 it has been a privilege to trade Meddings for over 20 years. Medding’s long history saw it successfully trade through multiple recessions and World War 2, however the impact of Covid at a time when we had invested heavily, coupled with various external factors, resulted in a trading environment that we could not continue to operate successfully in."
According to the administrator, in 2019 Meddings invested heavily in its metal fabrication and engineering machinery divisions to drive sales and increase profitability but when Covid hit, the jump in sales failed to materialise.
It took until 2023 for the group to reach pre-pandemic sales levels.
The financial issues were compounded by a lack of investment in core product lines which saw a "sustained reduction in sales", the administrator added, and the business began generating "substantial losses".
It is understood that without funds available to invest in R&D for products, there was no ability to reverse the losses, with the directors being forced to place the business in adminstration.
Ms Weir said: "The difficulties faced by Meddings are a reflection of the challenges faced by the º£½ÇÊÓƵ’s manufacturing industry, where more overseas competition plus increased operational costs continue to put a strain on companies who may struggle to fully diversify.
"Meddings has a great brand name and reputation, and I’m confident that there are opportunities for interested parties to save a part of the underlying business so that Meddings as a brand may continue."
Creditors of the company will be notified in writing of the administration in due course, she added.
