Powermark has fallen into receivership after a change of management and a new business plan failed to get the struggling reseller back on track.

Geoffrey Carton Kelly and Graham Bushby of Baker Tilly were appointed receivers of the Hertfordshire reseller last week. A representative for Baker Tilly said the situation was being reviewed but declined to comment further.

Initially a mail order reseller, Powermark's revenue tumbled during 1999, amounting to just £14.5m compared with £27m during 1998 and 1997. The reseller made a £1.5m loss last year, compared with profit of £100,000 and £855,000 in 1998 and 1997 respectively. The company's headcount fell from 89 in 1998 to 72 last year.

In October, a management team was appointed, led by Frank Foxall, formerly vice president of sales at GE Capital IT Solutions. Foxall planned to focus on the small and medium sized market, claiming that the larger corporate resellers were constantly in competition with global service companies such as Cap Gemini and IBM Global Services. Two specialist teams were established, focusing on networking with vendors Cisco and 3Com, and on Windows 2000 deployment.

An industry insider said: "The business has struggled to change direction from a mail order company to a reseller. The new management team may have arrived to late to stop the rot."

Powermark was unavailable for comment. A representative said Foxall was on holiday.

First appeared in Computer Reseller News