Skipton business is brought out of administration (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Skipton business is brought out of administration

7:18pm Thursday 14th January 2010 in

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Fifty five jobs have been saved – and ten more are on the cards – at the Copper Dragon Brewery in Skipton which went into administration shortly before Christmas.

A £3 million deal to secure its future is expected to be completed this week to enable the company, based at £4.5 million premises on the Snaygill Industrial Estate, to continue.

A further ten new posts are expected to be created in the production department later this year and the brewery’s popular bistro was also expected to re-open.

The brewery’s founder and managing director Steve Taylor is buying a 100 per cent stake in the company from administrators who were called in “unexpectedly” by a bank on the Friday before Christmas The rescue package comes following the liquidation last November of the brewery’s sister company, Copper Dragon Estates Ltd, which owned the freeholds and leases of seven pubs.

Under the new arrangements, ownership of two pubs and the leases on four further public houses, including the Bluebell Inn at Kettlewell and the Cross Keys at East Marton, will be transferred to the Copper Dragon Brewery.

Mr Taylor said the pub side of the business had made significant financial losses and was a drain on the brewery. The father-of-two also said the banking system had let him down badly and the past few months had been a “tense and frustrating period”.

A former Rolls-Royce engineer, Mr Taylor, 50, said administrators were appointed after he refused to grant the bank an increased share of equity and would not give up his intellectual property rights.

Before Christmas he owned a 75 per cent share of the brewery with outside backers owning the remainder, but under the new deal he will pay £3 million to own the whole company.

Mr Taylor, who lives in Skipton, praised the firm’s staff for their support throughout the troubled period.

He said: “With the outstanding support and understanding of every single member of staff, customers and suppliers, we have all worked tirelessly over the Christmas and New Year period to get through and I’m delighted to say that we are now back on track.

“The brewery has weathered the storm of a difficult and frustrating period caused by the fallout from the credit crunch at a point in time when it underwent significant expansion.”

He said the brewery had undergone massive expansion over the past 18 months after moving into its new larger base in November 2008.

“We were operating at optimum capacity at our old facility and required new premises and larger brewhouse in order to expand from a microbrewer to a regional brewery,” added Mr Taylor.

“We moved into our new £4.5m brewery and bistro at a time when the world financial system was in crisis.”

The brewery, which was set up in 2002, announced a record year last September with a 50 per cent increase in annual turnover to £4 million.

“The last 12 months have seen our turnover increase with record levels of growth month-on-month. The bistro also continues to be an outstanding success so the future looks rosy,” said Mr Taylor.

The company now has its sights set on supplying its beers to outlets in the North East and Midlands and preparations are under way to launch the new Freddie Trueman Ale to coincide with the unveiling of Skipton’s memorial the Yorkshire cricket legend.

The Copper Dragon Brewery brews five hand-crafted cask ales and supplies more than 2,000 pubs as well as major supermarkets and foreign markets as far afield as Australia and Russia.