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One of the country’s leading industrial auctioneering experts is warning that 2010 could be a real shocker, far worse in terms of company failures and job losses than anything we’ve seen so far.

Charles Moses, the Managing Director of Scunthorpe-based CJM Asset Management, one of the country’s top three industrial auctioneering firms, made his comment in a New Year review of business.

He said: “Even over the past 8-12 weeks we’ve seen a significant increase in the volume of instructions from asset-based lenders . . . industrial finance houses who lend money to companies to buy equipment . . . to recover assets from businesses that have gone under. Things have been far busier than in the summer when, theoretically, the recession was at its height.”

“Meanwhile doing the rounds of Christmas drinks parties with various insolvency practitioners around the region, everyone was reporting that the levels of enquiries and requests for help that they are getting have increased substantially since October.”

“However, reality is really going to come home to roost after the election. Whoever gets in will have to address the problem that the country has now got an overdraft of £178 billion.”

“There are only two things the Government can do, which are to raise taxes and cut costs in the public sector. Tax rises will take money out of peoples’ pockets and cutting public spending will see a lot of people losing their jobs. Both will have major impacts on the economy and business.”

“All in all, it does not add up to a rosy 2010. In my view the year could be worse than anything we’ve experienced already, a hell of a lot worse.”

Looking at business failures in the region, Charles said: “From what we’ve seen the past 12 months have been a very tough period for local companies. We’ve handled 50-60 insolvency jobs involving Lincolnshire and Yorkshire companies, which is a record for us.”

“Some were fledgling ventures, which can be vulnerable in the best of times, but others were long established operations . . . in the case of one I can think of dating back to the mid-Victorian period . . . which just could not survive this recession.”

“As an example of what is happening: Just before Christmas we were called in to sell off machinery and equipment following the liquidation of Bridgwater Joinery, a business based on the Allenby Industrial Estate in Lincoln. It was the third firm we’ve helped to liquidate on this one small estate in just over 12 months.”

He added: “The value of second hand plant, machinery and equipment is holding up extremely well but . . . disappointingly for the British economy . . . most of it is going abroad. Currently around two thirds of what we sell is going outside the European Union.”

“Our major project this year has been the disposal of £15 million of steel processing equipment, the contents of three Sheffield steel plants for Outokumpu. The project was expected to take two years but we’ve disposed of 90% of the kit in just ten months - all of it to developing countries including Vietnam, China, India, the Middle East and Africa.”

Speaking about the firm’s Scunthorpe auction centre he said: “The saleroom has had a record year, with well in excess of a million pounds worth of goods being sold. Nationally firms have been dropping traditional auctions in favour of on-line sales. Not everyone likes that and Scunthorpe is now one of the major auction centres in the country, with the monthly sales attracting buyers from all over the UK.”

Meanwhile Charles has disclosed that staff at CJM merely breathed a sigh of relief when they failed to win one of the last jobs of 2009 . . . an instruction was to accompany bailiffs to two Barnsley pubs and seize everything in lieu of unpaid business rates . . . on Christmas Eve!

“Can you imagine walking into a Barnsley bar on Christmas Eve and telling the locals that their favourite watering hole is to be stripped bare with immediate effect?”  asked Charles.  ‘Sounds like a hospital pass to me!”

For further information or comment please contact Charles Moses at CJM Asset Management on 01724-334411.