KPMG receivers appointed to papermaker
Difficult trading conditions blamed for Scottish company's demise
Receivers from KPMG have stepped in at Smith Anderson & Company, the
Scottish papermaker.
The company has suffered from difficult trading conditions, and also
blamed rising energy markets which pushed up UK gas and electricity prices for
its failure.
Blair Nimmo and Tony Friar were appointed as joint receivers on Friday last
week (16 June) at the request of the company’s directors.
Smith Anderson & Company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Smith
Anderson Group, one of Scotland’s oldest manufacturing companies, and had its
papermaking operation based at Fettykil Mills in Leslie in Fife.
Directors had implemented a restructuring plan last year that involved the
closure of one papermaking machine and the loss of 70 jobs, but despite this,
the papermaking operation become unsustainable.
Nimmo said the receivership had resulted in the closure of the two remaining
paper machines on the Leslie site.
‘The current financial situation means that we have no option but to make 106
redundancies with immediate effect, with the exception of the Securecycle waste
collection division, the papermaking business has effectively now ceased to
trade,’ he added.