Waverley TBS owed £64.6m to unsecured creditors when it collapsed last month, administrators have revealed.

The on-trade wholesaler left trade suppliers £40.5m out of pocket and owed the taxman £11.9m, said Deloitte in its report to creditors. It also made a pre-tax loss of £4.4m in the eight months to 31 August - compared with a £2.9m profit in the 12 months to 31 December 2011 - on sales of £195m, down from £309m in the year to 31 December.

“The company has for some time been under financial pressure as a result of reducing discretionary spending in the UK leisure market which has caused a decline in both sales volumes and profit margins,” administrators Daniel Butters and William Dawson from Deloitte wrote.

In September, it was hit by cashflow problems when key suppliers reduced credit terms. McQueen was instructed to look for a buyer while Waverley negotiated with stakeholders and suppliers in a bid to refinance the business. But Waverley was unable to raise the funds it needed to trade long enough for a sale to be agreed and Deloitte was called in on 2 October.

The administrators received one offer for the whole business and a second for the majority of the business. The first company withdrew its offer unexpectedly on 5 October, citing potential employment liabilities and the expense of integrating Waverley’s IT system with its own. The second withdrew and gave similar reasons three days later.

When Waverley fell into adminstration, seven drink suppliers were owed seven-figure sums, with Diageo left £6.1m out of pocket, Heineken £4.3m, AB InBev £3.5m, Bacardi £2.9m, Miller Brands £1.7m, Kingsland Wines £1.3m and Molson Coors £1.1m.

Of Waverley’s 839 staff, 790 have so far been made redundant.

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