News

Firm’s Collapse Leads to Big Sell-off

                                       Paul Cooper, Operations Director, CJM Asset Management

               Over a quarter of a million pounds worth of kitchen equipment and fires is to go under the auctioneer’s hammer on Saturday (June 24th) following the collapse of one of the Humber area’s leading suppliers.

              Cooking and Heating Limited was based on New Cleveland Street in Hull, with a showroom on Freeman Street in Grimsby.

              The firm failed a month ago. Now the administrators . . . Jacksons Jolliffe Cork of Hull . . . have instructed Scunthorpe-based industrial auctioneers CJM Asset Management to auction off the entire stock, ranging from showroom display items to the contents of the warehouses, brand new equipment that has not even been unpacked.

              CJM director Paul Cooper, who is heading the team handling the sell-off, said: “Cooking and Heating were operating in a cut-throat business that has suffered a lot of casualties this year. They are the third Humber fireplace supplier that we’ve dealt with in the past couple of months.”

              “That said, they were significant players, not only locally but nationally too through the Internet. Their local business based on the showrooms in Hull and Grimsby and supported by teams of fitters not only supplied the public but developers, housing associations, managing agents and others.”

              “Latterly they had been doing a lot of business through the Internet, winning orders from Scotland down to the South Coast. That was why the firm’s warehouses were carrying such large stocks.”

               “Saturday’s sale on the site at 100 New Cleveland Street will include the entire contents of the showroom, which amount to more than 100 display fireplaces, both gas and electric. There are also dozens and dozens of kitchen appliances, mainly cookers and hobs but with some other item.”

              “The warehouse stock includes literally hundreds of fires and fireplaces, as well as a lot of cookers, all of which are still boxed and wrapped.”

              “We have also cleared the Grimsby branch, although most of the stock from there has been taken to our saleroom in Scunthorpe where it will be sold at an auction in July, simply because we could not get very much more into the Hull buildings.”

              Paul added: “The equipment goes pretty much right across the field. The cookers for example go from fairly basic models that would have retailed for a couple of hundred pounds through to range cookers that were priced at over £2,000.”

              “The fires, fireplaces and fire surrounds are the same. They include ultra-modern flue-less gas fires that hang on the walls and look like television sets, that retail for £1,300 - £1,500, and traditional wooden, marble and limestone surrounds and fire sets that sold for over £2,000.”

              In all Saturday’s sale at 100 New Cleveland Street extends to 500 lots. The viewing sessions for the auction are on Friday (23rd June) 10 am-4pm and on Saturday morning from 9 am until the start of the sale at 10.30 am. Catalogues are available from CJM or can be downloaded free of charge from the firm’s website: www.cjmasset.com

 For further information or comment please contact Paul Cooper at CJM Asset Management on 01724-334411