Service Point UK leaves near-£100m shortfall

Unsecured creditors of Service Point UK are owed almost £40m and the company’s total deficiency is approaching £100m, according to official documents.

Service Point UK went into administration in April, and the firm’s trade and assets were sold to Paragon Group at the beginning of May.

The statement of affairs filed by administrators at Ernst & Young shows the two largest unsecured debts are with Service Point’s pensions schemes. The UDO Group Pension Scheme is owed £27.7m, and the Sime Malloch Stanplan F Scheme, £5.4m.

Service Point UK’s last set of accounts, for the year to 31 December 2012, showed a deficit of £9.3m across both schemes at the then-£40.4m turnover company.

The firm’s third-party trade creditors are owed £3.2m with equipment suppliers among the major creditors.

Xerox was owed £443,181 with a further £124,500 due for ‘click charges accrued not yet invoiced’. Xerox also has a separate £201,685 debt that is listed as being secured on fixed assets.

Canon was due £161,814 plus £74,000 in click charges for Service Point’s Canon and Océ kit.

Service Point UK owed HP Indigo £25,516 plus £11,600 in clicks, while Danwood Group is showing £30,000 in click charges accrued.

The total amount listed under click charges not yet invoiced exceeded £250,000.

Other substantial trade creditors include office supplies and equipment specialist Spicers, which was due £172,592, and wide-format substrate supplier Papergraphics. It is owed £153,773.

A host of print and finishing suppliers up and down the country, which supplied Service Point’s head office and branch network, are owed amounts ranging from £1,000 to tens of thousands of pounds.

One such creditor told PrintWeek: “It makes my blood boil. I’m fighting for every bit of profit and margin I can. People think that because we’re quite a large business it doesn’t matter, but it does. This is peoples’ livelihoods.”

Service Point’s customers are also among its creditors, with rebates totalling £316,505 due to clients of its managed service offering. Balfour Beatty Construction and insurance broker Jardine Lloyd Thompson were due the largest rebates, at £37,801 and £34,433 respectively.

However, the ‘total assets available to unsecured creditors’ amounts to just £600,000 according to the report.

The summary of liabilities produced by Ernst & Young details £8.8m of assets available for preferential creditors. Lloyds TSB, which had a £59m debt secured by a floating charge, as part of the financing it granted to Service Point's Spanish parent group, is left with a £51.5m shortfall.

HMRC is also owed more than £1m.

Overall, unsecured, non-preferential creditors were owed £38.3m and the firm’s estimated total deficiency is £99.6m.