According to the latest progress report to creditors by Philip Duffy and Benjamin Wiles of Duff & Phelps, the joint administrators have identified “several transactions” prior to the administration that required further investigation.
A number of creditors are known to have raised concerns with the administrators about the sale of Callprint’s Dubai-based business, Call Print Express, to the group’s then-managing director Steve Cheek less than a month before Callprint filed an intention to appoint administrators.
Duff & Phelps has called upon its forensic accountancy department to analyse the companies’ accounts going back a number of years.
“The quality and complexity of the group’s accounting records and policies necessitated the reconstruction of the companies’ balance sheets for several years prior to the administration, due to material misstatements in the filed accounts,” the report stated.
“Following this exercise and taking extensive advice from [solicitors] Weightmans, the joint administrators determined that the beneficiaries of the transactions identified should be pursued for the benefit of the companies. Letters before action have, therefore, been issued during the reporting period.”
Duff & Phelps said the particulars of the claims could not currently be disclosed “due to the contentious nature of the actions identified”.
The Callprint Group of companies involved a complex web of businesses. The report relates to Call Print Group Ltd and Call Print Services Ltd.
The other related companies are Call Print UK, Premier Reprographics, Redwood Press, Digital Printing Images, and TR 1.2.
Callprint companies owed trade creditors more than £1.2m at the time of the administration.
Hobs Group bought most of Callprint’s trade and assets in a pre-pack deal at the end of August 2018.
Chief executive James Duckenfield said the acquisition was performing well: “What we’ve acquired is what we expected to acquire. We haven’t found anything that’s surprised us,” he said.
“We didn’t acquire the legal entities, we acquired the trade and assets so we steered well clear of the complicated company setup.”
Call Print Group had sales of nearly £15.6m in its most recent accounts, to 31 March 2017. The business made an operating loss of £214,730 and a pre-tax loss of £386,434. It paid out dividends of £254,118, more than double the prior year’s figure of £104,109.
Cheek declined to comment on the contents of the report.
The administration has been extended until August 2020.
