According to the creditors report obtained by PrintWeek, Theodoulos Papanicola of Bond Partners was appointed administrator of Mailcom PLC on 30 March. The pre-pack sale of the company to Mailcom (UK) took place two days later on 1 April.

Three other offers, two of which were greater than the Mailcom UK bid, were made for the business, all of which were rejected.

The first came from a "respectable organisation" that offered in excess of the £1m paid. The potential suitor required a period of time to trade the business under license to ascertain "the optimum value" it was prepared to pay.

The second offer of £930,000 was refused due to the enforced deadline of 1 April, by which time the £1m offer lodged Mailcom (UK) was "immediately accepted" by the administrator to help "preserve the value of the business and assets".

A subsequent third offer, also greater than that lodged by Mailcom (UK), was refused as adequate proof of funding had not been provided, according to the report.

Mailcom PLC left £1m worth of debt behind, taking the total amount of debt the entity has dumped in the last 10 months to £4.5m. On 19 June 2009 Mailcom (North) went into administration, also with Papanicola, leaving £3.5m owed to unsecured creditors. It was sold to Mailcom PLC for £85,000.

The administrator cited a lack of funding and a possible depreciation of the company's assets as the primary reasons for selling Mailcom PLC in a pre-pack.

"It was considered that the company's business would diminish significantly if a pre packaged sale did not take place as the company's reputation would have been damaged and customers lost," it added.

Mailcom cited a major drop in the annual direct mail volumes from 80m to 45m processed at its northern facility, coupled with "volatile" pricing, for the need to "restructure".