The Perivale, London-based equipment supplier GAE went into administration with MCR on 5 January 2010 after parent company Litho Supplies collapsed in late December.

Tony Hards and Bryan Godwyn, who sold GAE to Litho Supplies in early 2008, have taken over again through acquisition vehicle Horizon Print Finishing, which will trade as Intelligent Finishing Systems.

MCR made 18 staff redundant when it took over, including staff transferred from Mitsubishi in late 2009 when the service deal moved to Litho Supplies and GAE. Going forward, the company will concentrate on finishing equipment, dropping press manufacturers such as Hamada and Mitsubishi.

Speaking exclusively to PrintWeek, Godwyn said that "alarm bells started ringing" with regards to Litho Supplies in August last year.

He said: "We used to present our financial figures to the Litho Supplies board once a month. All of a sudden we were not being asked to go in there and we couldn't even book a meeting ourselves.

"We barely heard from them and then, on 20 December – a Saturday – Michael Hammond called me and said 'we need to have a meeting urgently'. We found out shortly afterwards that the company was going into administration."

Godwyn added that two weeks beforehand, GAE had met with its bank, which signed off on its facility for another year without any questions.

"We were going to have a loss for the year," he continued. "But the bank was happy, we had no concerns. We could even see a turn coming in 2010. In hindsight joining with Litho Supplies was not a good decision. They did due diligence on us when they bought us; perhaps we should have done the same."

Hards added: "Horizon were incredible, they backed us from the start. We could have walked away, but this was the right thing to do for customers and staff."

Consumables supplier Litho Supplies has since been bought out of administration by a new company headed up by former shareholder and group sales director Eddie Williams.