All 11 employees of the Aberdeen-based company were made redundant.
Established in 2001 by the Whyte family, Whyte Crane Hire Limited provided lifting services and mobile crane hire to customers across a range of business sectors including oil and gas. The Company operates from two leased premises, located in Aberdeen and in Grangemouth.
In the year to 30th June 2018, its most recently filed accounts, the company made a pre-tax profit of £308,000 on turnover of £10.7m.
Since then, the business has suffered from declining turnover and profitability in the face of increasing competition.
The directors injected personal funds to meet critical payments but still trading performance deteriorated further, KPMG said. The resultant losses and cash flow pressures meant the directors ultimately concluded that the business could not continue to trade and placed it into administration.
A separate company operated by the Whyte family, Whyte Crane Services Limited, will continue to operate and is unaffected by the administration.
Joint administrator Blair Nimmo, and KPMG’s UK head of restructuring, said: “Despite the extensive efforts of the Whyte family, Whyte Crane Hire Limited was unable to continue trading in light of significant liabilities and cashflow difficulties, having been affected by the challenging market conditions in the Scottish construction and oil and gas sectors. This has led to the redundancies which have been announced. We will be working closely with Skills Development Scotland via their PACE team to support all affected employees during this difficult time.”
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