Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar of KPMG were appointed joint provisional liquidators on 20 October and they are now actively seeking buyers for the company and its assets, which included a five-colour Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 74 and Xerox 700 digital press.
KPMG said that on appointment and with no access to funding it had no option other than to cease trading Meigle and make all 15 employees redundant with immediate effect. At time of writing, it said there was no update on the sale process, while it is working with the relevant government agencies to ensure the full range of support is available to those affected.
Managing director Keith Johnston, who had been with the Galashiels-based firm for almost 40 years, said he was left feeling as if he didn’t have a choice after Meigle failed to recover from a forced premises move to a different unit in the Tweedbank Industrial Estate last year, alongside a declining local trade.
“It is with deep regret and sadness that we’ve come to this decision,” Johnston told PrintWeek.
“Meigle has been in the Scottish borders since the 60s and I have been there since school, nearly 40 years. It’s just the trade, it has been disillusioned for a while now and we had no option but to take the decision to go into voluntary liquidation.”
Johnston took over as Meigle managing director in 2002, in which time it has relocated twice, the second time described as being a “forced move by a landlord”. A story from the Border Telegraph last week reported that staff had taken an 8% pay cut back in 2009.
“It takes a couple of years to flush that [the premises move] out of your system and business and trading has not let me do that,” added Johnston.
Nimmo, who is head of restructuring for KPMG in the UK, said that it would do everything it could to seek a buyer for the company’s assets in order to maximise recoveries for creditors. Meigle also ran a Heidelberg GTO, a variety of finishing equipment and offered fulfilment services. It had four outstanding charges, dating from 2002 to 2013.
“It is sad to see another printing firm, particularly one as well established as Meigle, enter liquidation, with the loss of employment to the Scottish borders,” said Nimmo.
A source told PrintWeek that Meigle, whose machine printing apprentice Lachlan Johnston won a Scottish Apprentice Award last year, had recently seen a number of local frameworks moved to bigger suppliers, eroding its customer base and leading the business to a point where it was unsustainable.
“It’s a shame because it was a good company with nice, skilled people,” the source said.
“It is against the Scottish government’s agenda of procurement, which is to drive social and economic benefits in Scotland. They need to focus on buying locally to help or we will lose more regional printers. Some people hang on and then get to the point like Meigle where they think ‘This is it we’ve got nowhere to go’.”
PrintWeek reported last month on the extra challenges facing companies in the devolved nations.
