Following the news in August that Beta Solutions GmbH in Germany had filed for bankruptcy, Beta Distribution is following suit.
As CRN reports, following its confirmation a few weeks ago that “multiple credit insurers had withdrawn cover”, Beta Distribution has gone into administration.
Deloitte has been named as the administrator and has “confirmed that Clare Boardman and Richard Hawes, restructuring partners at the company, have been appointed as joint administrators”.
60 of Beta’s 100-strong workforce have been laid off.
“Beta Distribution has been experiencing increasing competition in the consumables market and this has placed it under a degree of liquidity pressure and has restricted the availability of credit to their suppliers,” Boardman stated.
“It is a large importer of products from Europe and has, amongst other pressures, experienced issues with foreign exchange rates.
“Despite interest from a number of parties, no sale of the overall business was achieved and the directors took the decision to place the business into an insolvency process.”
The company’s Belgian branch, Beta Distribution BV, has not suffered any financial ill effects and is continuing to do business.
Rich Marsden, MD of another distributor, VIP, has been weighing in on the news of Beta’s insolvency.
“It’s always sad to see a brand that has been around for as long as them go. It. I don’t know what the underlying issues are, but the market is tough,” Marsden said.
“It is a challenging market for everyone and you’ve got to batten down the hatches and get through it – 2018 has not been a great year for that many people.”
The CEO of CMS Distribution, Frank Salmon, has also been commenting on the news.
“It’s a very unfortunate situation they’ve found themselves in. It does highlight the need for companies to be responsible with their product margins and to maintain a sustainable business,” he said.
Finally, Alex Tatham of Westcoast expressed the view that Beta’s demise “provides a warning to the channel as a whole.”
“This is a business that has been on the edge for a long time,” he stated.
“Every single supplies vendor wants to make sure that they want to use authorised channels in the future and Beta was unauthorised in most channels.”
“The vendors themselves said ‘I do not want to use unauthorised channels or to use the grey market across channels’ and that is what killed Beta.”
