It give me no pleasure to say "as I predicted" in relation to unfolding events at BemroseBooth, but the concerns I expressed about the company in a blog last autumn have proved well-founded.

What a mess. It's depressing when any company hits the buffers, but when it's a firm of nearly two hundred years' standing there's something even more devastating about it.  

In this instance the abrupt closure of BemroseBooth's two sites in Derby has additional personal resonance, because its Wayzgoose Drive factory was just a few miles down the A52 from where I grew up. Family friends worked there. Discussing the debacle with my dad last night, he pointed out that Bemrose, like Rolls-Royce, was seen as one of the aspirational places for local people to work. Hence the number of long-standing employees with many years' service who found themselves suddenly unemployed and unpaid this week.

As I write this blog the situation for the business is unclear. The group is not yet in administration and it remains to be seen whether a buyer will emerge for the other sites, or whether the Derby operation can perhaps be reprised. What is clear is the ineptness of the apparent pre-pack attempt by existing management, and the extent of Marks & Spencer's outrage at being implicated in the closure. For the retailer to make such a definitive and scathing statement says a lot.

Looking back on the ownership changes that have resulted in today's sad state of affairs, one curiosity that strikes me is the deal whereby AIAC took the firm over in 2008 after Appleton lost interest. In doing so it also took on the company's pension scheme deficit, which had risen to £14.4m by the end of that year according to the accounts subsequently filed by the new owners. Such a liability would usually be a deal-breaker requiring the vendor to stump up or retain responsibility, so I'm utterly mystified that AIAC took it on.

It's one of a number of things about the whole sorry situation that just don't make sense.