Typhoo Tea racked up debts of £100m as it collapsed into administration
Typhoo Tea collapsed into administration owing around £100m to its creditors ahead of being rescued, it has been revealed.
The Bristol-based company entered administration in November 2024 before being bought in a £10m deal the following month.
Now, a new document filed with Companies House by Kroll has revealed how much Typhoo Tea owed to its creditors and how it came to enter administration in the first place.
According to Kroll, Typhoo Tea owed over £65.5m to Karalius when it was appointed while other non-preferential unsecured creditors were owed more than £7.3m.
Axis was also owed in excess of £19.1m while an interim distribution of £7.2m has since been paid.
Kroll added that there are estimated preferential claims of just under £30,000 while HMRC is also owed around the same amount.
In its document, Kroll said: “The company had experienced a sharp decline in revenue and profitability over recent years.
In FY23 and FY24 it experienced significant exceptional costs relating to a restructuring of the business and a trespassing incident.
“The company was unable to obtain further funding and its working capital was exhausted, leading to severe liquidity issues.”
Kroll said there will not be enough funds to pay Axis all of its money back while preferential creditors are expected to be paid in full.
The firm added that non-preferential creditors are also not expected to be paid in full.
Typhoo Tea was rescued out of administration by Manchester-based Supreme, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM, for £10.2m last month.
In a statement released at the time, Supreme said the deal includes Typhoo Tea’s stock and trade debtors with a book value of £7.5m and that it expects the integration of the business to “proceed without disruption to existing operations or customer service levels“.
For the year to 30 September, 2024, Typhoo Tea generated an unaudited revenue of approximately £20m and a pre-tax loss of around £4.6m.
In the year ending September 2023, the company’s revenue stood at £25.3m and it made a pre-tax loss of £37.9m.
Typhoo Tea was taken over by Zetland Capital Partners in July 2021.