For sale are the Robert Horne, Howard Smith, Donald Murray Paper and The Paper Company corporate brands of Paperlinx UK, the paper merchant whose descent into administration for most of its UK operations on 1 April was blamed for tipping Scottish company Tullis Russell Papermakers among others, into administration.
These brands, formerly companies that Paperlinx acquired, “carry considerable heritage value and a market presence dating back to the early 20th century” Metis Partners said.
More than 200 Paperlinx brands and trademarks and more than 80 domain names are being auctioned, including tinted paper product brand Fizz, self-adhesive paper brand Core and ivory board product brand Royal Kent as well as a selection of recycled paper brands such as Revive, 9lives and Greencoat.
Head of corporate recovery at Metis Partners, Nat Baldwin, said: “This is a unique opportunity to purchase the intellectual property assets of long-established paper businesses, whose products are globally recognised.
“We have already received offers and expressions of interest from paper manufacturers, distributors and merchants throughout the world and are confident of successfully completing the sale of these valuable assets shortly after the official deadline for offers on Wednesday 15 July.”
Meanwhile, the joint administrators of Fife-based papermaker Tullis Russell Papermakers, Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar of KPMG, engaged Glasgow-based Metis to sell Tullis Russell brands, coated and uncoated SBS board Trucard, Mellotex, the business paper brand, established in the 1930s and the first product approved by Canon for colour copying, Lustulux, the highly polished cast coated board brand and cartonboard Gemini, which was acquired by the company in a multimillion-pound deal.
The Naturalis fine uncoated papers brand was sold to GF Smith last month.
End-users of Tullis Russell papers include L’Oreal, Chanel, Hallmark, Swarovski and Finlandia.
Baldwin said there had also been “huge amounts of international interest” for the Tullis Russell brands.
The deadline for offers is this Thursday (16 July).
Meanwhile the administrators have appointed John Wilkie Paper Mill Services to sell the papermaking machinery and GMG Asset Management UK to sell the other assets by a mixture of private treaty and auction.
Nimmo said both parties are in the midst of formulating their marketing campaigns and have not yet launched sales.
The property itself is owned by Tullis Russell Group, which is not in administration.
Metis Partners lists IP sales of companies including MFI, Land of Leather, Ortak, and Internacionale among its past successes.
