A CVA Rescues Chain Of Beauty Salons

Our client runs a chain of Beauty Salons in Scotland. The company was experiencing strong growth year on year from 2014 and was opening new outlets and turnover was predicted to reach £2.5m in 2020.   The expansion plans had meant that the company was committed to some large liabilities. The company experienced a huge loss of trade following the pandemic and were not allowed to open as quickly as other retail outlets due to the close person-to-person nature of the service.  . Post pandemic trade did not pick up as well as hoped and this led to a large liability to HMRC of £426k.  The directors got in touch as HMRC had in fact served a winding up petition on the company but they felt it was still viable.  Before our involvement they had been advised not to pay HMRC, which contributed to them serving the petition.

KSA Group, by acting swiftly, was able to persuade HMRC not to advertise the petition and then withdraw it.  If it had done it would have been the end of the business.  KSA then advised the company to propose a CVA to its creditors including HMRC.  This was approved in November 2022.  As HMRC are preferential creditors they will receive 100p in the £1 over the course of the 5-year CVA and the rest of the unsecured are to receive 33p in the £1.  The business was successful pre pandemic and so there was no reason why it couldn’t be successful afterwards.  Strong control of finances and cutting costs has insured the company’s continued survival.