The UK operation was established forty years ago and supplied a range of machinery used for mailing, inserting and packing.

Its trading status had been unclear last week, with no response from its Fareham base.

Swiss parent company Kern Group has shared a communication sent to customers by CEO Stefan Wüthrich and Daniel Wenger, head of the KernMail business unit, explaining the situation.

The letter states that Kern Ltd is in liquidation because of the firm’s “already prolonged negative overall economic situation”.

All 22 employees have been laid off.

“This situation was caused by the general economic situation in England, mainly characterised by the ongoing consolidation of our customers in the document processing segment in recent years, exacerbated by the Corona pandemic and Brexit, as well as the war in Ukraine and high energy costs,” the letter stated.

Kern Group said it, and its other subsidiaries, were operating as normal.

However, the firm also said it was not possible for the parent group to take over existing service contracts in the UK.

“In a first transitional phase, we will send a small support team with service technicians to England to support our customers as far as this is possible according to the current circumstances.”

All spare parts on customer premises that were the property of Kern Ltd are now under the ownership of the Kern Group.

“We will contact you in this regard. We are working on a solution with the highest priority in order to be able to guarantee full support and service again in the near future,” Wüthrich and Wenger said.

Kern Group is also working on a long-term solution for the future distribution of its products in the UK.

At the time of writing details regarding the insolvency proceedings at Kern Ltd and the practitioners involved were not available.

Kern Ltd is not connected to London-based translation specialist Kern UK Ltd.