Administrators for Burleighs Gin still hope a buyer can be found, more than a month after being called in.
It comes as newly released documents show Burleighs was £1.58 million in the red when it went under at the start of December.
Administrators at Begbies Traynor said following the collapse they still hoped a new owner would step in and today gave an update saying “the company is not going to be liquidated”.
Back in mid-December they had said a preferred buyer had been found for the distillery, which is based in the Charnwood Forest in north Leicestershire.
They also said they hoped a deal would be concluded by Christmas. That deadline has passed, but a Begbies Traynor spokesman said “the sale of the business as a going concern is ongoing.”
It comes as a statement of affairs for Burleighs Gin Ltd uploaded to Companies House suggested the total assets of the business available to its creditors – from machinery, furniture and less than £15,000 cash in the bank – stood at less than £20,000 on December 5.
Meanwhile the documents show the distiller owed almost £268,000 to the FSE Group for a loan issued on behalf of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), and more than £852,000 to a company called Autarky Ventures Ltd, the previous name for Burleighs Holdings Ltd.
Burleighs Gin owed a further £294,500 to HMRC. Other creditors included Leicester City Football Club, which was owed more than £5,000, Leicester Tigers, owed more than £4,200, and Leicestershire County Council, which was owed almost £6,300.
The administrators originally stepped in following a petition to wind up Burleighs from HMRC. The Burleighs website remains live is not taking orders.
The distillery was launched at Bawdon Lodge Farm, in the countryside at Nanpantan, near Loughborough, in July 2014, and went on to produce gins for Leicester City Football Club, Leicester Tigers and the King Richard III foundation alongside its own London Dry Gin, Export Strength Gin and Distiller’s Cut Gin, as well as other varieties.
Back in February 2021 it announced £250,000 of investment to scale-up its operations from the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), which was going to help it take on five full-time sales and operations jobs.
The MEIF package was provided by The FSE Group and backed by the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).
As well as helping it launch new products the funding was also going to allow the company to build export sales in Europe and the Far East, and expand into the United States.
At the time Burleighs Gin director Sam Watson had said it was exciting times for the business which had a “clear vision” for growth.
He had said: “We are aiming to expand the brand overseas and continue to grow in the UK.”
In 2020 a crowdfund campaign was heavily oversubscribed bringing in £130,000 from 260 investors who gained a 5.25 per cent stake in the business. The campaign valued the business at £2.3 million.
