Factor chain Andrew Page Group has secured further funding from its provider PNC Business Credit.
This comes a year after the group agreed a refinancing deal with PNC and the new funding will see its original facility level increase from £40m to £50m to support its growth plans.
In a statement issued by the company, Ed Brookes, CFO of Andrew Page commented: “The new £50m funding package provides additional capital to allow the business to accelerate its strategic growth plans and maintain its momentum. PNC are a terrific partner to have on board through this exciting stage of our development.”
Jim Sumner, Chairman of Andrew Page said: “Our expansion plans and the confidence of our financial backers is a reflection of the wide experience and hard work undertaken by the management team. The continued focus on the streamlining and efficiencies of our business is paying dividends and we’re at the top of our game.”
The firm, which is backed by private equity houses Endless and Phoenix Equity Partners, operates 108 branches across the UK and at the start of last year stated its intention of expanding through a combination of acquisitions, new branch openings and investing in its on-line presence.
I worked for AP and they treat their staff appallingly, they tried to get rid of me by disciplining me for attendance, but because they didn’t keep their records correct they couldn’t, where as I did keep records and proved time of was given approval by my line manager… a month or so later I was made redundant. Even then (end of 2015 and beginning of 2016) suppliers were putting pages on stop, I am still in the motor parts supplying business but for another company and loving the job, I hated my short time at AP due to the way I saw how they treated staff and how they got rid of them through underhanded means (I just wish I gathered evidence at the time). no wonder they have gone into administration.. I hope most of the people I worked with at MV will still have jobs especially the people on the warehouse floor. Lots of good people working hard and getting treated like S@@T by the senior managers.
To all from both big players that are posting insults let’s grow up shall we!!!
Firstly the argument that AP is the second biggest supplier in the country does not make it immune to what has happened, if I’m correct then Unipart was the biggest in the country when it went bust, size in this instance certainly doesn’t matter!!!
Secondly what needs to happen now is grevencies forgotten, because people’s livelihoods are at stake!!!!!
IMO I believe our southern branches will close. Almost all Northern branches turnover a profit & will stay open as normal. We’ve suffered since we bought Camberley & to some extent Unipart Automotive. MVs a failure as well.
NYC
please don’t say words like that when people’s livelihoods are at stake
None of you have anything good to say the company is 99 years old and turning almost £200 million, watch this space
Watched the space, in fact I watched ECP buy the space just to keep it afloat.
Do you like going on like a moron or does it come natural? Are you some big wig for ECP that clearly thinks you are clever and big time Charlie? You must have paid for AP if you feel the need to go on like a total prat.
I neither work for either factor but looking in from the outside you are one proud little boy thinking you are the person handing and splashing the cash around. Give you’re head a wobble and get real people’s livelihood’s are at stake here and you think you are clever
Well….your all wrong. Announcement in the morning. New owners. Pages is alive & kicking & will be for a long time. Just ECP spreading rumours. Bit like the terrible service they spread all over our town. Trust me I worked at ECP. Its shockingly bad.
Oops. ECP are now the new owners of AP.
Who’s wrong? And who’s spreading rumours?
But your wrong…… clearly. LKQ are the new owners? They just happen to own ECP as well. I bought fish then some chips for dinner? Does this mean the chips are owned by the fish because I bought them 1st??
The winner her is the workers. They can stop worrying about Xmas & holidays & mortgage paymemts etc.
“LKQ Corporation today announced that its United Kingdom subsidiary, Euro Car Parts, has acquired substantially all the business assets of Andrew Page Limited, a distributor of automotive parts in the United Kingdom. As part of the transaction, Euro Car Parts will acquire 102 Andrew Page branch locations, its national distribution centre and corporate office”.
That’s the official statement of LKQ. Enjoy your fish and its subsidiaries.
My husband is on redundancy notice from the company who supplied Ap just been reading dome of these posts so has Ap gone bust or not?
What company does he work for?
Well as always the staff are the last to know anything. There have been many rumors over the past month regarding AP difficulties yet nothing is said to the staff at each branch. It wasnt till today that i found out that they have filed a “notice of intent” and that was purely because i did some google searching. Non of the staff at the branch i work at know anything although someone did mention today that there was due a announcement late this afternoon but nothing was said at the end of the working day today.
Well you need to speak to your branch manager, as there was a notice put out
Can’t believe some of the petty comments on here when peoples lives may be on the line. Comment from ‘NYU’ was just the sort of thing I would have expected from an employee of that organisation
NOT THAT VALUABLE TO BE HONEST
and the receivers are in…………
They think it’s all over……… it is now.
Good luck to the staff. Treated appallingly by senior management again. Suppliers left with massive debts.
What will happen? Nothing. When a company as great as Andrew Page once was, is brought to it’s knees by people who earn a fortune whilst destroying people’s jobs and lives there’s something very, very wrong in the world.
is this really happening?
I called 3 branches this morning @ 10.30 and they all answered (took them a while but they did!)
although – I believe they can still trade whilst in administration.
I’d suggest nothing has been made official.
I believe KPMG will be the people who handle it if they do.
This is all untrue but have you heard Ecp are closing 25 branches
No they will be trading as normal on Monday, ECP rumour spreaders 😉
If its all untrue, where is their stock? they have nothing left and even the trade website has ran out of things like clutches, selling diagnostic equip out the back of the vans for cash…something is obviously happening, staff have now been told an announcement is coming Wednesday instead of today.
AS A VALUABLE MEMBER OF THE ECP SALES TEAM I CAN CATEGORICALLY SAY WE ARE NOT CLOSING ANY BRANCHES! MR PAGES ON THE OTHER HAND ARE F@@KED.
No
totally agree, its the poor guys and gals that have been earning the fat cats their money which are the ones that are going to suffer, its immoral and should be illegal, I worked there and can honestly say the blame lays at the feet of Phoenix equity, they are just a bunch of bankers (and a word that closely rhymes with that!) who have got rich off of ‘daddies money’ and wanna play around at being big men, not a single one of them have a clue of the trade and should have left it well alone, great job guys you’ve now caused over 2000 employees to panic, stress and worry about how they are gonna feed/house and look after their families whilst you sit behind a nice big oak desk and chortle to yourselves ‘oh never mind!!’
you make me sick!!!!
There is no stock because they are on stop with the majority of their suppliers.
My boss was asked by them to possibly buy the business but took one look at the state of their finances and catagotigaly told them know.
The company is managed(badly) by a bunch of inept idiots who just spunk away the money they are given by their finance company.
I just feel sorry for the staff at the branches not knowing what the truth is and are having their lives being messed with.
I’m glad I got out when I did.
Mr B you must work for a wealthy boss and has a fantastic business, did he mention the 12% growth and the 2nd biggest motor factors in the country, to grow business your business you vast amounts of money to expand or the bigger fish will swallow you, there will more businesses to follow I assure you that.
Loads of rubbish being banded about, they are not in any major trouble.
No thanks to the so called competitors for spreading the rumours.They will be trading as normal tomorrow!
So why have the got no stock, a pug 206, couldn’t supply discs and pads, there stock has gone, no LUK in the buildings, it they are trading as normal as some people claim, where is the stock going to come from? Its common knowledge that they are on stop with pretty much every supplier.
I work there. Wer in the sh** big time. Ridiculous practices going on. People at the very top seem to have no clue what theyre doing. Most stock shifted about between depots gets lost or left in limbo for weeks unable to sell. The big MV distribution centre is a massive massive failure, management their totally inept. Administration next week.
I left 3 weeks ago and they were on stop with11 major suppliers then!
we had a memo yesterday, reassuring us our wages will be being paid 2moro…
Selling to public at trade prices…. Major fail…… May beat ECP on prices and service but not here for the long term. ECP all the way for us
40% of ECP turnover is over the counter, click and collect and there 4 online websites
And pages is tiny, so if your a garage owner and you want to go down the route like America were the customer brings there own parts and you charge a handling fee (cork) charge which is normally 10% lets see how long your in business
Absolute rubbish…. Try 10%!
Not here for long term? Pages have been here nearly 100 yrs?
So was woolworths, and look what happened there!
a long time maybe…. but not with the current management!
Says it all when AP can sell a pair of calipers to a garage for £42 each when their cost price from FPS (as seen on invoice) was £81 each. Predatory pricing gone nuts!! Last week they bought a clutch & flywheel off GSF for £380 and sold it to a GSF customer for £250.
It almost appears like they are deliberately trying to run the business into the ground. Perhaps then planning a pre pack – buy it back for a £1, stuffing the suppliers of course. A way for Unipart to make a comeback even?
the boardroom has no idea of what it takes in the motor trade, they are totally out of touch with the staff and customers, and are constantly playing catch up to E.C.P’s ideas and business practises, half of the boardroom have never had any experience in the motor trade and therefore their ideas are totally alien to the trade, those directors that are from the ‘old school’ should hang their heads in shame that they have allowed a great family run business to turn into a circus, Andrew would never have allowed such things and certainly never tolerated stupidity and ineptitude, the likes of which they have in abundance.
I still have a lot of friends that work there and I do not wish to see any of them out of the job, but I cannot see that given the state that they are in, coupled with the lunatics running the asylum that things are gonna get any better, if the worst happens then those at the top should be held accountable for it!!!!
Do you work for Andrew page (AP Jokers) as you seem to know a lot about them (not)
As horrible as it is, we need one of the big players to disappear from the market. There are simply too many companies chasing an ever decreasing market. The main dealers are so switched on now in tying the end users into service agreements the aftermarket really is approaching it’s end game. Time will tell if it really has a future, or if it will goes the same way as the independent grocer, butcher and baker and be swallowed up by the big players in the game, be it supermarkets or main dealers/manufacturers.
have they now gone bust? Hearing so many rumours?
Ive heard this too!
Where did you get that information mall? I am intrigued seems you know a lot about AP you must work close to the finance within the business to know that.
it`s data in the public domain Jamie. Just get a copy of their latest accounts. I hope for the sake of the employees that they trade out of it and succeed. Tough market (UK) in a tough industry though. Margins are low and about to go lower. Margins for nearly all of the big parts distributors across Europe are a concern.
Mall we been informed who is taken Andrew page over and will be announced soon
Its info that you can easily find out online or via companies house
unbelievable! This business keeps burning through cash. How much longer will their backers throw good money after bad? They had an operating loss of 42 million and reported in the press as a great achievement. Suppliers be very careful – without credit insurance you are taking a huge risk.
All rumours
the loss was when ap got hold of the partco stock and sites dumbass