Cox Long, the Stafford merchant and importer, has been forced to call in receivers after 100 years of successful trading.
Directors at the £18m-turnover company, which employs 180 at sites at Stansted, Avonmouth and Hixon, called in administrators from BDO Stoy Hayward last week following a cash crisis at the firm.
BDO Stoy Hayward partner Dermot Power blamed this on ‘shrinking margins in the traditional divisions together with slower-than-expected growth in emerging products [which] left the business vulnerable.
‘A combination of these factors has forced the directors to seek the protection of the administration procedure,’ said Mr Power.
BDO Stoy Hayward is hopeful that a buyer can be found for the company’s assets which include a freehold site at Stafford and a manufacturing facility for trussed rafters.
The crash comes only four months after the announcement by Cox Long of a major investment programme. In October it spent £500,000 on a new production facility and was to spend another £500,000 over the following two years. The investment was largely designed to equip the company for re-entering the timber frame manufacturing market, which it pulled out of in the early 1990s.
The new plant, which covered 1,100m² and was equipped with the latest machinery, could produce floor cassettes and wall panels. The new facility also gave the company the potential to produce a variety of other joinery products including internal and external doorsets, spandrel panels, porch frames and Easi-deck modular decking panels.
