Prior to the appointment of joint administrators Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar of KPMG on 27 April, Tullis Russell Papermakers had already been widely marketed for sale by its parent company Tullis Russell Group.

The group had approached 64 parties worldwide without success. A wider sales process initiated by the joint administrators that contacted approximately 200 parties has now proved similarly unsuccessful.

Nimmo said: "The level of interest shown in the business and the outcome from Monday's closing date is disappointing. The business continues to face considerable economic challenges as a result of weakening global demand for printed materials, rising raw material costs and the strengthening of sterling against the euro.

"We will now be working with the company's remaining employees to continue to wind down operations and focus on realising the company's assets. Unfortunately that will mean further redundancies but we will continue to work with government agencies to offer support to those affected."

A further 21 employees have been made redundant while operations are being wound down, taking the total number of redundancies since the administrators' appointment to 346 of the 474 staff.

Earlier this month, the administrators expressed hope that they might receive an offer for the business after 14 potential buyers signed a confidentiality agreement ahead of a site visit and meetings with management.