Top story
The directors of gluten-free food maker Feel Free, which raised hundreds of thousands of pounds via crowdfunding, are facing bankruptcy proceedings as new documents into its administration cast doubts over the integrity of its financial records.
GF Foods (York), trading as Feel Free, collapsed in February leaving creditors over £1.2m out of pocket, with little hope of the three secured lenders receiving a “modest” repayment, the report showed.
Crowdfunders, who injected almost £400,000 over two funding rounds on the Crowdcube platform in 2013 and 2015, will also lose out.
The report by administrators Redman Nichols Butler, which was appointed on 17 February 2017, revealed invoice finance firm Sancus, one of three secured creditors owed a total of £755,000, had demanded repayment prior to the administration as they had “concerns over the integrity of the company’s financial information”.
For all the details on the administration see thegrocer.co.uk/finance this morning.
Morning update
New Turkish owner Anatolia is confident it can turnaround struggling dried fruit and nuts supplier Whitworths after snapping up the business earlier this week from private equity owner Equistone.
Anatolia director Koray Oz said the board had “full confidence” in improving Whitsworths from its current state and would give “full support” to the current management team, led by CEO Mark Fairweather.
Read the full story on thegrocer.co.uk/finance later this morning.
Yesterday in the City
Sainsbury’s (SBRY), Tesco (TSCO) and Morrisons (MRW) all jumped yesterday as non-listed rival Asda suffered another tough quarter. Asda sales fell 2.8% in its first quarter but CEO Sean Clarke insisted the fightback momentum was building. Sainsbury’s rose 1.7% to 273.7p, Tesco was up 0.9% to 184p and Morrisons jumped 0.3% to 243p. Ocado (OCDO) was also up 0.7% to 290p.
Booker (BOK) crept up 0.6% to 200.3p as the wholesaler currently undergoing a proposed £3.7bn takeover by Tesco saw pre-tax profits rise 15% in its full financial year.
Dairy Crest was one of the day’s big fallers, slumping 3.7% to 593.5p as sales of its key brands fell by 1% to £416.6m as a result of price deflation in the first half of the financial year.
SSP Group (SSPG), by contrast, leapt 3.2% as the travel concession firm reported 8.5% profits growth to £42.8m in the six months to 31 March, along with an 8.1% rise in revenues to £1bn.
Greggs (GRG) also had a good day, with shares increasing 0.7% to 1,078p, after total sales grew 7.5% in the first 19 weeks of its financial year – a higher growth rate than the 5.7% achieved in the same period in 2016.
Premier Foods (PFD) continued to slide, down another 2.7% to 41.6p, taking losses to more than 8% so far this week.
The FTSE 100 fell for the second day in a row as worries over the stability of the Donald Trump continued and the pound jumped above $1.30 for the first time in seven months.
Premier Foods (PFD) continued to slide, down another 2.7% to 41.6p, taking losses to more than 8% so far this week.
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