There had been rumblings of problems at Norton Motorcycles for months.
On forums and social media, bike fans had moaned about upfront payments for new bikes that never arrived.
Among them were Steve Gadd, from Lincolnshire, who said he was forced to contact Trading Standards after paying Norton £18,000 for a new bike with nothing to show for it seven months later.
Administration proceedings announced this week mean that he becomes one of many creditors of the business.
With a V4SS retailing at £44,000 and the RR costing £28,000, the figures are anything but small.
Elsewhere the Pensions Ombudsman is considering fresh complaints from investors who put their savings into three pensions schemes linked to the Castle Donington motorbike business.
Some 228 individuals invested in the schemes which in turn invested their millions into Norton.
The ombudsman has already ruled on instances of individuals suffering long delays trying to get money out.
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More cases are being looked at.
Then there were the winding up petitions against the company.
According to The London Gazette, DHL International issued a petition to wind up Norton Motorcycles last August.
Soon after a spokeswoman for the delivery business told LeicestershireLive the petition had been withdrawn. No further details were given.
This month Norton owner Stuart Garner told us he was working to avoid another winding up petition – this time from HMRC, over hundreds of thousands of pounds of unpaid taxes.
Mr Garner had rescued the historic bike brand back in 2008, moving it to Leicestershire and building it to a team of 100 people – some say there might be as few as 40 working there now – making bikes such as the Commando 961 Cafe Racer, Dominator and V4RR.
The company owed HMRC £300,000– much of which would be covered, Mr Garner had said, by outstanding research and development tax relief which was owed the business.
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The High Court’s Insolvency and Companies Court in London had heard how HM Revenue & Customs was originally owed around £600,000, half of which had been paid.
That case was adjourned until February 12.
Despite media reports suggesting the HMRC debt was what pushed it over the edge, BDO – the accounting firm overseeing the administration – was actually brought in by Norton’s banker Metro Bank.
Metro said they had spent months working with Norton to try and find a solution to the problems, but bringing in the administrators had been in the best interests of all concerned.
A Metro Bank spokeswoman told BusinessLive: “Having worked closely with the company for many months, we have acted in the best interest of the company’s stakeholders and employees, and on the basis of independent advice.
“We have therefore made the difficult decision to request the appointment of administrators.”
BusinessLive has been unable to contact Mr Garner about the administration.
But following this month’s HMRC hearing, he had said it had been a “formality”.
He said: “We have paid an element of the cash and the figure left is, in essence, the R&D balance.
“It has been frustrating that the tax credits have taken so long to come through.
“We have spent about £13 million in R&D in the last three-four years so it is frustrating that this has taken so long.”
There had also been issues with Norton’s most recent set of accounts, published last spring.
As revealed in LeicestershireLive at the time, the company’s auditors had raised questions about things such as investments in a US operation and stock quantities, and suggested income and pre-tax profit might have been “overstated”.
The auditor’s report – part of Norton’s accounts for the year to March 31, 2018, when turnover was £6.7 million and pre-tax profits were £33,701 – added that “a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern”.
When that news was broken, Mr Garner remained bullish that the business was in good health.
He told us at the time: “We are in the strongest position that we ever have been and I think we will build 1,000 bikes in this current year.
“Our entry point with the new models is £15,000 and they go up to £44,000, so that is equal to £15 million-£44 million in sales – plus there are spares and licensing deals.
“If you look at the report it’s nearly two years ago and we are growing with new models and new markets, with a big order book and new workforce.
“We won’t comment on turnover for the most recent year as it’s not a publicly listed business.”
There was further positive PR too.
At the start of 2019 the business had announced a £20 million export deal with Japan which would support 海角视频 jobs and see around 1,000 new motorbikes sold to Japanese customers over the next five years.
And only four years ago then Chancellor George Osbourne had joined Mr Garner and local MP Andrew Bridgen on a tour of the north Leicestershire headquarters to announce a £4 million funding package.
That was made available to help the bike maker and 11 of its supply chain partners – and support the launch of a British Motorcycle Manufacturing Academy at Norton that, it was reported, would create up to 600 full and part-time jobs and 200 apprenticeships.
The Chancellor had said: “Stuart asked me a question about what we could do to support the British motorcycle industry.
“I said let’s work with Norton because it is a company that epitomises everything about what’s happening now in British manufacturing.”
Some apprenticeships did happen but the charity behind the academy faced being struck off the Companies House register last year, and the last set of accounts remain eight months overdue.
A facebook page has not been updated for many months. Questions will surely be asked if it was a good use of taxpayers’ money.
More recently the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership provided a £750,000 loan to support construction of a new factory at the company’s headquarters.
The factory is built, but stands empty and the LLEP joins the list of creditors.
In a new statement published in the Guardian, Mr Garner said he was “devastated” and had lost everything he had.
The Department for International Trade export champion, who previously said the 海角视频 would “thrive outside the EU”, added: “It has become increasingly difficult to manufacture in the 海角视频, with a growing tax burden and ongoing uncertainties over Brexit affecting many things like, tariffs, exports and availability of funding.”