Jobs have been saved after a Grimsby seafood supplier which collapsed with debts of £1.5m was sold to new owners.
D&A Seafood Solutions Ltd has been sold to Ramus (Grimsby) Ltd in a pre-pack deal worth £65,000, documents show, after efforts to continue trading through a corporate voluntary arrangement (CVA) failed. Business advisory firm Quantuma – which also acted for the firm during its CVA – secured the future of D&A Seafood Solutions Ltd and its 32 staff following the sale to Ramus, a fellow Grimsby supplier of premium quality, fresh fish and seafood.
Quantuma managing directors Sean Bucknall and Elias Paourou were appointed as joint administrators of D&A Seafood Solutions on October 31, and documents filed at Companies House outline the chain of events that led to their appointment. An estimated financial position document for D&A Seafood Solutions shows debts of £1.5m, with 33 creditors. £401,000 of that sum is estimated to be owed to HMRC and more than £16,000 is owed to utilities company Northern Power.
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The document shows that the firm has been sold for £65,000 - £5,000 on completion and the rest to be paid over the next eight months. The report says the company was initially based in Wembley, London, and saw early success in supplying pre-packaged fish and seafood to wholesalers and retailers.
When it outgrew its base in 2017, the company moved to Grimsby fish docks, with the staff moving with the business. However, at the end of 2017 the business hit extreme hardship when one of its major customers went into liquidation, forcing it to refinance twice, in 2018 and 2019 to give it the leverage it needed to move forward.
In May 2019 the company was merged with Ramus Seafood Ltd, a premium seafood supplier to retailers which was owned by a private equity house, and the ownership structure was moved to MBR Group. Over the last two years D&A Seafood Solutions has endured a number of challenges, the report says, including significant price increases on raw materials, packaging, utilities and waste.
The company had previously tried to resolve financial difficulty by re-financing assets and entering into a time to pay arrangement with HMRC “however, this had a detrimental impact on the company’s cashflow”.
A CVA plan was accepted but the company couldn’t maintain the monthly contributions due under the agreement, triggering the administration.
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A spokesman for Quantuma said: “D&A Seafood Solutions operates from a site in Grimsby Fish Docks, Lincolnshire and is a supplier of fish and seafood to retailers, restaurants, hotels and caterers from its British Retail Consortium (BRC) accredited site. The sale provides clarity and job security for 32 members of staff. The purchaser has taken on the D&A Seafood Solutions site in Grimsby and all employees were transferred to the purchaser under TUPE regulations.
“Founded in 2015, D&A Seafood Solutions reported turnover of circa £4.5m in 2023, but due to a series of challenging circumstances, the business entered into a CVA in April 2024. Unfortunately, the CVA was ultimately not viable and failed, and another solution was then required for the company and creditors, which led to the company subsequently entering into administration.”