Fish dealer Seatek in administration

Seatek (UK) Ltd and its subsidiary John Koch is a leading frozen, fresh and ambient fish and seafood wholesaler in Britain. With sales offices throughout the UK and Ireland, the company website says Seatek offers a 'one stop shop for the wholesale and catering sector, controlling every aspect of the supply process from catch through to delivery.' It looks after the whole supply process from buying the catches at the quayside through to storage, distribution and delivery to restaurants, fishmongers and fish’n’chip shops. The company employs around 65 staff and had a £39 million turnover last year.

Jason Godefroy and Andrew Stoneman, Partners at MCR, were appointed Administrators of Seatek (UK) Ltd, Oriental Delight Foodservice Ltd, and Vision Seafoods Ltd . Jason Godefroy and Declan Taite (FGS Partnership) were appointed Joint Receivers of Evergreen Food Services Ltd, based in Co Kildare, Ireland.

The Seatek administrators have indicated that while they are not sure what has happened, they were confident the problems are not due to market forces or other outside factors as the company appeared to be trading well. They will now go through the books to establish the full financial situation before, hopefully, trying to find a buyer for the business. As yet there is no news on jobs.

Two weeks ago the main British Seafood group, including Five Star Fish of Grimsby, was placed in the hands of the administrators Deloitte

Posted at 07:52PM Mar 08, 2010 by Kelly Board in Insolvency  |  Comments[0]

Mortgages Available on the Rise

The number of mortgages available to prospective buyers has increased over the past month with over 1700 mortgage deals with a deposit of 0-40% available at the beginning of this month.

This figure showed a 6% increase on February and a massive 68% rise on this time last year.  This comes according to research from the financial information service Moneyfacts.

Out of these deals available though, there are still only very few available with a 0-5% deposit. However there has been a significant rise in the number of deals with a 10-15% deposit available, there are now 489 such deals on the market, almost double the number of this time last year of just 258.

Michelle Slade, an employee of Moneyfacts said, "There are a growing number of mortgage providers who are becoming a little more accommodating with their credit criteria and this bodes well for consumers who will benefit from a growing competitive mortgage market,

"It is pleasing to see that the average mortgage rate is falling at the same time as deposit requirements are getting smaller."

 Further good news comes from the number of lenders that have decreased their interest rates on mortgages over the past few weeks.  These include, Lloyds, RBS, Cheltenham & Gloucester, Northern Rock and Alliance & Leicester, with most cuts being between 0.1% and 0.5%.

Furthermore, RBS has also increased its maximum advance for first time buyers, they have doubled it for £150,000 up to £300,000, giving more indication of the current willingness to lend in the market.

"The biggest reductions in interest rates have tended to be at the highest loan-to-value (LTV) levels, at 85% in particular," said Ray Boulger of mortgage brokers John Charcol.

"It tells us partly that lenders have more money to lend," he added.

The willingness of lenders has increased due to the constant rise in house prices over the past year, meaning they have new been able to lend against an appreciating asset, rather than a depreciating one.

Boulger also added, "Increasingly in the last few weeks, some lenders have improved their offerings over 75% LTV, which is down to the consideration that it is more commercially viable - the risk is that much less."

Despite the positive outlook of these figures, the number of mortgage deals requiring more than a 25% deposit has stayed fairly high, 57% of deals still need this level of down payment compared with 68% last year.  However, going back a couple of years to before the credit crunch began to bite, in August ’07, just 16% of mortgage deals required a deposit of 25%.

Posted at 11:10AM Mar 08, 2010 by Marc Stenton in Mortgages & Housing Market  |  Comments[0]