Business

Unsecured creditors of Bradman Lake Group will not receive any money, a report from the packaging machinery manufacturer's administrators has confirmed.

Administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), who sold the firm's trading assets for £1m to engineering conglomerate Langley Holdings shortly after Bradman Lake fell into administration in October 2007, said secured creditor Bank of Scotland had received £800,000 to date and another £68,000 could follow.

However, in a report to creditors this week, joint administrator Robert Lewis said he would not distribute £28,000 available to unsecured creditors because "the costs associated with agreeing and paying claims would be disproportionate to the benefits".

Bradman Lake was formed of two legally separate entities - BL Group and BL Bristol - that had no connection other than common shareholders Graham Hayes and David Mills. When they fell into administration, BL Bristol owed £1.9m and BL Group owed £3.9m to creditors.

In his report, Lewis said he believed PWC had achieved a better result for creditors as a whole by taking the firms into administration, rather than winding them up without first being in administration.

A potential equity or trade purchaser had been sought for two to three months before the administrators' appointment.

Since buying Bradman Lake, Langley has moved the firm's Norfolk operations from the new Norwich facility that opened last summer to the old Europack factory in Beccles, which has been refurbished.