Bathrooms firm will be forced to sell assets

A Black Country bathroom firm will be wound up within weeks, with debts thought to be about £100,000.

Diamond Bathrooms Ltd, based on the Pedmore Road Trading Estate, Brierley Hill, closed without warning last month.

The closure left customers in the dark about their orders. Insolvency firm Midlands Business Recovery, based in Sedgley, today confirmed it is due to be appointed as liquidators on October 14. The process means the company's assets will be sold to raise funds for creditors including customers.

Midlands Business Recovery principal Paul Brindley says the firm will be dealing with enquiries about the bathroom business until it is officially appointed next month.

Mr Brindley said Diamond Bathrooms had a "limited number" of customers and creditors who would be contacted in due course.

"The firm was yet another victim of the recession," he said. "It ran out of cash. The directors had been trying to re-finance or sell the business."

Several customers claimed they were left in limbo over orders as they had been unable to contact Diamond's director Clive Tibbetts and senior partner Alan Kitching.

But Mr Brindley said the bosses at Diamond Bathrooms Ltd had been focusing all their efforts to save the business and were not managing customer enquiries.

"The reason people were unable to contact the owners of the company is that the directors were trying to sell the business," he said. "All their efforts were put into that and they do not have the time to speak to people."

Mr Brindley said around 90 per cent of the retailer's business was from online sales and that was where enquiries were being made.

He said the full scale of Diamond Bathroom's debts would be made clearer next month.

All enquiries about customer orders should be made to Midlands Business Recovery on 01902 672323.

Trading estate landlord Brian Higginson claims he is owed money but has been unable to contact anyone for weeks.