Ploughcroft in Administration

[Somecamel]

Is this the first of many more companies going under?

 

[whinmoor]

Makes sense to do it now I guess. No point plodding through a depressing winter waiting for the phone to ring. Last year we had the excitement and frenzy of dealines to keep us all motivated.

 

[sedgy34]

Niceic are supposed to be non profitable too

 

[Worcester]

Just For Info:
Amanda Botterill, Directorships:
Yorkshire and Humber Microgeneration Partnership Community Interest Company
Pellgen Limited (Plumbing) Became a Director - Sept 2011
Video Mail Limited (Dissolved)
Enterprise 41 Limited (Dissolved) (Development & Selling of Real Estate)
Zenith Marketing & Promotions Limited (Dissolved)

 

[MorganPVI]

Sounds like Amanda likes jumping on this months latest bandwagon.

 

[sedgy34]

Sounds like Amanda likes jumping on this months latest bandwagon.

she keeps falling off though is her problem

 

[Somecamel]

Dragons for Breakfast lol!!!

Dragons for Breakfast - a motivational book by Chris Hopkins

 

[dansk]

gees - how many have you pre-ordered somecamel???? lol

 

[Somecamel]

They're out of stock already Think the publishes are having some cashflow problems

 

[dansk]

ha - wonder if it talks about how it didnt work out?

 

[whinmoor]

Interesting quotes from the synopsis:

"He is driven to be the best. Not just the best in Yorkshire or England, but the world." [Best at what?]

"The profit motive has been a driving force from the beginning and this book is punctuated by asides and tips to help the would-be entrepreneur avoid some of the pitfalls, and enjoy some of the successes, in his climb to fame and fortune." [I wonder if he managed to avoid the pitfalls?]

 

[SRE]

I'd guess he did avoid the personal pitfalls - that's in the chapter "How to rip off my supply chain while keeping your customers happy and siphoning off a bundle."

 

[Gavin A]

After reviewing our financial situation, we took action today to ensure that we avoid doing a ploughcroft.

All our staff have now agreed to temporary half time working arrangements, plus extra if it's available, and as a result of being able to cut our regular monthly overheads in this way, I've now secured a personal loan to invest in biomass and heat pump training, new marketing material, 2nd hand solar deck to cut our scaffolding costs and to cash flow us through the winter.

We've now gone from around £30k a month overheads at peak to £12.5k a month and still have our warehouse, office, 2 vans, office, insurance, membership fees, and a staff team of 8 included in that budget. I may no longer actually technically own the vans mind, but they're available for our exclusive use at peppercorn rent due to us having an investor who decided that their best safeguard for their investment was to buy the vans off us then let us use them as normal, which was a bit of a surprise as I'd been expecting to have to flog one of them completely.

We're on the cusp of starting work on a project that should give us 20-30 installs a month for 6-9 months, so once this kicks in we should be all systems go again, but we just needed to avoid the potential for ending up at the end of OCtober being unable to meet our wages obligations just before this project kicked off.

I reckon I should see if I can get a book deal and an award for best company director as well, or do you have to be a complete cavalier twunt who happily screws over staff and suppliers to get one of those things?

Not being a limited company probably helps as well, it does concentrate the mind a wee bit when the alternative is personal bankruptcy and not being able to run a company for 7 years, instead of corporate bankruptcy and being able to set up shop again the next day like you've not done anything wrong.

I probably shouldn't be posting this up publicly eh, but thought some on here might benefit from an alternative method of dealing with the sorts of financial issues I suspect most of us are experiencing right now. I actually think the staff appreciated being approached in this way about it instead of us pretending it was all fine then dumping them in it at the end of the month if we couldn't pay the wages at that point.

Not one of my easier days mind.


ps I'd appreciate it if this didn't leave this forum, though I guess it doesn't matter too much as it's really those that don't take action that are most likely to end up in trouble (other than those working for themselves who can just hibernate for winter, which is also probably a sound strategy).

 

[Somecamel]

Whats said in the sun lounge stays in the sun lounge.

I would be lying if I pretended that everything was OK, it's not.

I suppose I'm in the next rung of companies to fold.

Not enough work and my overheads are tiny compared to you Gavin.

The market has collapsed.

 

[confounded]

I genuinely believe the nadir for PV was May this year, we have a tough winter ahead but like you we plan on using this time to add new technologies and take a longer term view. Providing we don't get a VAT hike and Chinese panel trade sanctions then I can see 18 months from now they will be implementing the larger regressions to the PV tariff.

I wish you and your company all the best, we can well do without the likes of Ploughcroft but if people like you leave the industry we wont have an industry.