Carl Jackson and Andrew Watling of Quantuma were appointed as joint administrators of the Maidenhead-based firm on 23 December and the company ceased trading immediately.
A statement from the administrators said the appointment came “after a review of the business revealed that the company faced a number of demands from creditors culminating in action being commenced to liquidate the company by one of its suppliers.”
Watling said: “It is always very sad to have to take a decision to close a business suddenly, especially in the run up to Christmas, but the position the company was in meant there was no choice.
“It simply ran out of money and had no way to raise extra funds to pay costs like wages, utility bills and rent, having apparently exhausted all such avenues.
“We now have the task of realising the company’s assets and dealing with creditor claims as well as investigating the circumstances of the company’s failure.”
The business, which was established in 1973, started out as a specialist litho printer. It more recently moved into commercial printing and produced items including catalogues, brochures, die-cut sim-card wallets and programmes. It recently produced the programmes for the Wimbledon 2014 Tennis Championship.
Its assets included three old Heidelberg Speedmaster 102 presses, two ten-colours and a five-colour.
William Spracklen became the managing director of the firm in September 2013, taking over from Alan Touchard who had been at the helm since 1992.
An unnamed creditor who is owed nearly £100,000 said: “Things came to a head here around September or October when the company’s monthly payments to us dried up.
“We agreed a payment plan but Williams Press even failed at the payment plan we’d agreed by late October. We then went onto a cash basis and it was able to find sufficient money to trade on during November on a week to week basis but our debt remained constant.”
Last summer there was industry speculation that Neil Sharp, director of Purfect Binding Company (PBC), which went into liquidation in June, had some form of involvement with the business. However, at the time Spracklen strongly denied that there was any link between Sharp and Williams Press. According to Companies House Spracklen was the sole director of the business and had 100% shareholding.
According to Sharp he had no official capacity at Williams Press but served as a sales consultant.
Spracklen was contacted by PrintWeek but declined to comment.
