Hall & Roche cherry-pick assets of collapsed W F Hall

A number of the assets of insolvent W F Hall & Son have been snapped up by related company Swansea-based Hall & Roche Logistics.

Fishguard-based W F Hall, which has an O-licence for 20 vehicles and 40 trailers, owed non-preferential creditors £795,984.17 when it appointed Roger Hale and Robert Lewis of PricewaterhouseCoopers company liquidators on 4 April.

The bulk of the firm's assets, worth £219,900.34, were used to pay off secured claimants, leaving the haulier with a £817,331.57 deficiency.

Conor Roche, a director of both W F Hall and Hall & Roche, which operated as different companies, says: "W F Hall really struggled with the December snow and had a number of customers unwilling to accept a fuel surcharge. To make matters worse, the business was hit by debts of around £150,000 when its client Falcon Steel entered administration in January."

He says prior to the insolvency of W F Hall, Hall & Roche took on 15 employees from the failed business as well as 10 HGVs.

In March Hall & Roche Logistics submitted an application to Nick Jones, Welsh traffic commissioner (TC), to increase its O-licence at Swansea to 22 vehicles and 31 trailers, from 12 vehicles and 16 trailers.

However some non-preferential creditors have expressed anger that the directors had enough money to buy some of the insolvent firm's assets, but not enough money to pay them what they were owed ahead of the W F Hall collapse.

One operator, owed over £2,000, says: "I don't think its right that the directors could get into such a bad financial position and get away without paying creditors, and yet they can continue to trade as 'business as usual' with Hall & Roche Logistics."