One of NW England’s best-known sales, lettings and auction businesses has gone into administration with 130 staff facing redundancy just 18 months after celebrating a ‘fantastic year’ at the end of 2017 on its company blog.
Wright Marshall has eight branches across Cheshire but also offices in Buxton in Derbyshire and Whitchurch in Shropshire and is part of the Fine & Country network. The company was founded in 1843 and its current form is the result of a merger in 2014 of two local firms.
The company says 40 people have already been made redundant from its auction business, which has ceased trading with immediate effect following a downturn in agricultural livestock being brought to auction.
Its directors say this has created cashflow difficulties for the company and that they had no choice but to place it into administration.
Wright Marshall is well known in the region for its property expert Robert Reed (left), who makes regular appearances on the regional BBC TV’s Breakfast programme.
Anthony Collier and Ben Woolrych, partners at FRP Advisory LLP, have been appointed joint administrators of the business and are now seeking buyers for the profitable parts of Wright Marshall.
This includes the property, fine art auctions and professional services divisions of the company which are to continue trading.
“The challenges facing the agricultural sector are well documented, and the downturn in livestock volumes being sold through the auction mart have resulted in this business making unsustainable losses,” Collier told local media.
“Our focus now is on identifying a purchaser for the other aspects of the business in order to maximise any returns for creditors, and of course to work closely with the Redundancy Payments Service to support all affected employees at what we know will be a difficult time.”
Read more about Wright Marshall.
It is annoying that such an old agent is facing the receiver. It’s disappointing for the property market as whole that a decent Landlord can’t find any solution to run this business any more. Expenses including SEC 21 are extremely discouraging. You simply cannot make any money out of your investment under present circumstances to survive.