| |
Hans J Marter
13 May, 2008
PLANS to build a whisky distillery in Shetland by Blackwood
Distillers Ltd are being revived after its sister company was put
into administration earlier this month.
Bruce Cartwright and Graham Forest of PricewaterhouseCoopers were
appointed to oversee the administration of Shetland Spirit Company (SSC),
the company that developed Blackwood's white spirit business.
Blackwood is now entering into an exclusive production, sales and
distribution contract with Blavod Extreme Spirits to develop the
company's successful gin and vodka brands.
This should secure a long term stream of income to the company,
which will be used to pay off the company's creditors, Blackwood’s
chief executive Caroline Whitfield said yesterday (Monday).
Ms Whitfield insisted that putting company into administration was
the responsible thing to do and would not lead to receivership or
liquidation.
A drive to raise additional finance for SSC earlier this year was
unsuccessful in the light of the developing credit crunch, she said.
The two remaining jobs at the company's South Nesting office will
transfer to Blavod and Blackwood. |
|
Administrator Graham
Frost said he was unable at the moment to give an indication as to
how much debt the company had accumulated as he and his team were
still in the process of taking stock.
Most creditors are trades businesses such as bottlers, distributors
and haulage companies. A creditors meeting will be held later, but
it is unlikely to take place in Shetland.
Ms Whitfield said: "This is not a liquidation. This is reshaping the
business to grow properly under another company and making sure we
do the right thing legally and morally by paying the creditors."
She added that Blackwood’s distillery plans for Shetland were still
very much alive, although they had been put on hold last year to
allow the company to sort out its problems at SSC.
"This partly explains why there hasn't been as much obvious progress
on the distillery in that we clearly needed to sort out what was
going on in the SSC part of the business.
"Secondly, although I don't like my private business in public, I
also made clear that the funding side on the whisky was somewhat
subject to my final divorce proceedings. That is now being concluded
in the summer.
"We never had any public money at all and don't plan to have any in
the future. Now the whisky funding is a mix of new equity we are
working at and new debt," she said, adding that "more concrete"
updates were to follow in the near future. |
|
.jpg)
 |
|
