Jobs fear as firm enters administration

Jobs at the Lincoln home of a national service station operator are hanging in the balance after administrators were called in.

Swayfields Limited and Swayfields Extra MSA Holdings Ltd have gone into administration after the Swayfields Group admitted it was having difficulty servicing its debt commitments.

Swayfields, which has its headquarters in Castle Hill, has an annual turnover of £13m and operates 11 roadside service sites including six motorway services, two on trunk-roads and three forecourts.

Individual services sites were not subject to any insolvency process and are still operating as normal, the administrators said.

Spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers Katherine Howbrook said: "Eleven people work for Swayfields Ltd at the headquarters.

"The process has just started and at the moment staff are being retained to help the administrators go through the whole process but in terms of redundancies, it's too early to tell at the moment.

"Certainly, there has not been any redundancies but there is a still a whole process involved."

Ian Green, joint administrator and partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that while the group had successfully expanded its operations significantly over recent years it had struggled to service its increasing debt commitments.

"Consequently, with limited options available to it, the group has sought the protection of administration to enable a restructuring and re-financing of its profitable operations to be pursued," he said.

"Our immediate priority now is to review all options and immediately seek a buyer for the shares of the operating companies.

"We are confident of a sale being completed with minimal, if any, impact on the operating sites.

"We will look to work with the group's existing management team, suppliers, employees and customers to try and find a solution to take the business forward."

Swayfields Ltd was founded in 1992 by Stephen Spouge, now 65, who lives in Barlings, near Langworth, and his family.

They are said to be worth around £90m and made their fortune.

Swayfields Extra MSA Holdings Ltd was formed in 2002.

No-one from Swayfields was available for comment yesterday.