BHS collapse: West Midlands firms owed more than £2m

More than 60 companies are said to be affected, with one said to be owed more than £400,000.

Halesowen denim jeans and jackets manufacturers Fundamental Fashion is owed £403,000 while Alan Nuttall Partnership, in Dudley, is owed £95,500 for display work.

ICS Distribution, in Smethwick, is owed £93,500; shoemakers Kidderminster Footwear, £72,800 and garden furniture business Mir & Co, Oldbury, £72,000.

A report by administrators Philip Duffy and Ben Wiles of Duff & Phelps shows that in total £48.54 million is owed to the 1,214 trade and expense creditors that have come forward.

They expect a unsecured creditors to get back just 3p in the pound once £55m has been paid to secured creditors,which includes £35m to BHS's former owner Arcadia Group.

It was announced earlier this month that BHS's 163 shops, including branches at Merry Hill, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Telford and Birmingham, would disappear from the high street after administrators failed to find a buyer for the retailer.

Fundamental Fashions managing director Harvey Gatehouse said he was in negotiations with the administrators to take stock that had been made to BHS orders. "Losing BHS means we are losing 10 per cent of our annual business. We have been supplying BHS since we started in business in 1998," he said.

The company employs about 20 people at its site at Alcora Building Mucklow Hill. ICS, which operated one of the main warehouses for ladieswear for BHS at its six-acre site at Halfords Lane, said that potential redundancy letters has been given out to employees. A spokesman said: "We are still working for the administrators and at the end of the day should not be owed anything. The loss of BHS will have an impact on our operation. It has shaved £250,000 off our bottom line. It was one of our biggest customers. We may have to lay off people."

Thomas Blunt, a director of Kidderminster Footwear, said the business had been owed a much bigger amount originally, but administrators had purchased stock made for BHS to reduce that." Mr Blunt said the business, which has been making shoes at New Road since1865 and employs more than 100, had been supplying BHS for over 15 years. It hopes to continue to supply BHS stores if part of the business is sold and continues to trade.

BHS's total non-preferential unsecured creditors total £1.12 billion. HMRC is owed £16.3m for unpaid VAT and corporation tax, landlord claims total £357.8m and the pension scheme has a £571m deficit. The remaining one-tenth is owed to inter-company creditors.

BHS Ltd, the group's principal trading company, lost £69m in the year to August 2014 and management accounts for the 18 months for February 2016 showed a loss of £93m, before interest, tax and exceptionals.

The administrators, who have continued to trade the business since it went into administration in April hoping for a sale. estimate their bill will reach £3.5m for nearly 10,000 hours work, while law firm DLA Piper is expected to bill £2.3m.

Various offers for the whole business were received, but no deal proved possible and an orderly wind down of BHS was announced on June 2.