The London printer turned to Poppleton & Appleby last week after rolling out a redundancy programme in August.

Around 20 staff have already gone and the firm is completing orders on heavily financed kit, said David Cowan, a manager at the insolvency firm.

"The only real asset base is the order books and goodwill. We havent yet gone into the reasons that led up to the fall, but have got weeks rather than months to sell."

Adland made the 203 spot in last years Print Week Top 500 with sales of over 10.5m and profits of almost 46,000.

It has two plants and produces commercial and financial print. Kit includes an eight-colour Heidelberg B1 press, a two-colour GTO and a five-colour Komori 540, a host of repro gear, finishing machines, and trucks.

Two years ago chairman Bob Reeves pulled the plug on its subsidiary, REM Colour Print, saying the "black hole" had swallowed 700,000 and would receive no more cash (PrintWeek, 11 August 2000).

His firm bought REM a year before and used its factory in Chingford, Waltham Forest as its main base.

Story by Jez Abbott