Investors who rescued Border Precision face losses

Borders Precision Engineering Ltd ceased trading at its Pinnaclehill plant with the loss of 79 skilled jobs following the collapse, during the previous week, of a large order with an aerospace company.

The firm, founded as Border Precision Ltd in 1976, has had a difficult recent trading history, having been forced into administration in January 2013.

In the spring of that year it was announced by administrator Grant Thornton that the business had been sold to a new company – Border Precision Engineering Ltd - in a management buy-out thanks to “six figure” investment by Tweed Renaissance Investors Capital (TRI Cap).

The portfolio page of the TRI Cap website reveals that over 20 members of the syndicate were persuaded to invest in the buy out.

A report by Grant Thornton shows that Border Precision Ltd was actually sold for £500,000 in 2013 and still faces claims from unsecured creditors of £1.8m.

Meanwhile, the latest list of shareholders and their holdings for Border Precision Engineering Ltd, filed at Company’s House as recently as April this year, reveals the names of those who invested in the ill-fated management buy-out.

These include Patrick Campbell-Fraser 15,000 £1 shares; Rupert Wailes-Fairbairn 18,500; Patrick Scott Plummer, Kelso 27,500; David Sturrock (solicitor and former company secretary of Border Precision Ltd) 5,000; Andrew Lubbock of Harwood 20,000; Walter Gervase Riddell-Carre (recently joined the TRI Cap board) 23,000; Robert Dick (chairman of TRI Cap) 8,556; Gavin Stevenson (vice chairman of TRI Cap) 10,000; Andy Purves (secretary of TRI Cap) 5,000; David John Dalglish 17,111; Jules Livingston 15,000; and Ranworth Capital Ltd (whose Jamie Andrew replaced Gavin Stevenson as a director of Border Precision Engineering Ltd in May 2015) 55,000.