CPC collapsed after taxpayer-owned bank pulled funding, it emerges

RBS withdrew funding for the business over the summer, a factor that made a key contribution leading to the business’s collapse last week.

The bank, which is owned by the government, claimed that it was asked to provide extra funding but that to do so would have been “irresponsible”.

It also claimed that the Paris-based parent company, Groupe CPC, which has carton and label printing sites across Europe, had itself stopped financial support for its UK subsidiary earlier in the year.

A spokesman for RBS told PrintWeek that CPC Packaging UK had been experiencing “severe financial pressures” and had identified the need for additional cash to continue trading.

The spokesman said: “However, the firm’s parent company [Paris-based Groupe CPC] was not willing to provide further support and because we were unable to establish the future viability of the business, it would have been irresponsible for us to provide additional lending.”

CPC Packaging UK, which has sites in Bristol and King’s Lynn, was placed into administration last Tuesday evening (24 August) with Grant Thornton.

The administrators made 95 employees redundant immediately, but kept the Bristol site open in the short-term to complete customer orders.

They also blamed the ever-rising cost of raw materials for the financial problems in which CPC found itself.

Groupe CPC could not be contacted this morning for comment.

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