Pricoa backed the 2015 MBO at the business helmed by now-CEO Stephen Goodman. The investment house is owed at least £32.5m by the group based on its most recent accounts, and is understood to have put in additional funding involving a multi-million pound amount over the past year.
Printweek has made repeated attempts to contact Ed Jolly, managing director of Pricoa’s London corporate finance office, but without any response.
One now-redundant YM employee told Printweek: “When it was clear things were going wrong, we all asked ourselves where are the investors – why aren’t they asking questions?”
Last year Pricoa’s London office was involved with 35 transactions and £2bn in investments. Its total UK, Irish and Scandinavia portfolio spans 108 companies and some £8.6bn of lending.
That means that even if YM owes Pricoa as much as £50m, it still represents less than 1% of its London portfolio.
On 31 March Pindar Scarborough, YM Chantry and York Mailing went into administration with FRP Advisory. More than 500 employees were laid off immediately, and were not paid their March wages or overtime, despite being promised they would be paid by YM management.
The current status of the remaining businesses has resulted in an unusual situation.
YM Group Ltd is where the Pricoa loan notes sit. That company is not currently in administration. Two of the six directors of YM Group: group managing director Peter Greaves and former co-owner of the business Mike Newbould Junior have both reportedly received their P45s as part of the administration process, yet remain directors of YM Group.
Subsidiaries Lettershop (TLG) and Go Direct Marketing in Leeds continue to trade and are not in administration. TLG had sales of £19.7m in the year to 31 May 2020, while Go Direct Marketing’s turnover was £4.7m.
Prior to the collapse of its web division YM Group had sales of nearly £115m.
The future ownership of the businesses remains a source of intense industry speculation. Sources said that representatives from Paragon Group had been seen at TLG over the past week.
Marie Fioramonti, executive managing director of global corporate finance at Pricoa is also understood to have visited the site.
TLG historically specialised in complex personalised direct mail products, and recently expanded into paper-based packaging for e-commerce.
Go Direct Marketing is a strategic direct marketing and data analytics agency.
On 5 April a new company, Castlegate 794 Ltd, was set up by Goodman together with YM chairman Chris Ingram and TLG managing director Alistair Ezzy.
Goodman and Ingram are listed as shareholders with significant control.
The Castlegate name has been used in the past – YM Group was named Castlegate 740 Ltd when it was initially registered.
On 23 March Go Direct Marketing CEO Adrian Scott also incorporated a new company, GDM 22 Ltd.
Separately, FRP Advisory is yet to announce any outcomes regarding the offers it has received for the web offset plants and/or assets of the three sites in administration, much to the frustration of former employees.
“The longer the sites sit closed down the harder it is to get them going again,” said a source close to the situation.
“You’d think something has to happen by the end of this week.”
