The joint administrators of Pacedene have asked for a further three months of administration in their report to creditors.


The report stated that from 26 July to 30 September 2000, Pacedene returned a 158,896 profit after a restructuring by administrators from Smith & Williamson and Hacker Young resulted in a 25% staff cut.


Pacedene went into voluntary administration at the end of July (PrintWeek, 4 August).


Pacedene managing director Howard Diamond said: "We've turned the corner. We have the support of our clients and suppliers."


The report said Pacedene recorded a 1.89m net loss for the year to May 2000 and blamed the management for not recognising danger signs.


"The directors did not take heed of the declining margins, and did not learn any lessons from the failure of one of its local competitors, Display Productions Limited," it stated.


Although the company had sales of 5.329m, its costs of those sales were 5.317m combined with other costs of 1.902m.


The creditors' meeting will be at Hacker Young's offices in London on 15 November.


Story by John Davies