Critchleys Chartered Accountants' partner, Anthony Harris, has been named liquidator of the Stroud, Gloucestershire-based company.

He said: "The company is a new business that had been given promises of work that it wasn't supplied."

Harris said Asterim stopped trading four weeks earlier and was placed into liquidation 10 days ago. He is not attempting to sell it as a going concern. 

The company is understood to have been founded six months ago by publisher Alan Sutton after the collapse of book printer Oaklands Book Services.

In May 2007, Oaklands Book Services was acquired by its client, NPI Group.