17.11.2006

Universal update

We can confirm that all of the aerial lifts owned by Universal have now been sold, Facelift purchased over 300 units that were owned by Universal rather than finance companies.

The purchase included a fleet of 30 truck mounted lifts, largely Bronto Skylifts, including the 62, 44, 43, 38 and 34 metre models. We understand that while some may be added to the Facelift fleet, they will in time be sold on, most likely outside of the UK.

The rest of the units are largely boom lifts, most of which will be sold on. However the purchase includes a number of 125ft and one 150ft JLG booms, which Facelift plans to put into its growing self propelled lift fleet.

Lavendon had already purchased a number of the Universal machines to add to its Rapid Access fleet in the Middle East. Many of those have already arrived in Dubai.

A few units are still available from some of the finance companies that repossessed machines after the administrators were called in.

Vertikal Comment

Many of the Universal units were old and in “tatty” condition according to several people we have spoken with, thus the desire to sell them on. And move them out,

Every call we receive on this subject unanimously condemns KPMG as being dreadful to deal with and for “not having a clue”. The same noises were of course heard during the Independent administration period.

KPMG of course care very little, as this administration illustrates, its number one focus appears to be on how much money it can extract from the situation for itself.

If anyone had the funds, the stamina and the interest there would seem to be plenty of material here for legal action. Either from the employees, possibly the previous owners or most likely the creditors.

One thing appears to be clear, the spirit, if not the letter of the law, of the new enterprise act has broken. Plenty of companies were interested in the business as a going concern, plenty were interested in buying assets but gave up trying.

Sadly nothing is likely to change and we will most likely be saying the same thing when the next business fails.