Recruitment advertising firm Barkers, which was sold to Penna last week in an £8.6m cash deal was not helped by its parent company’s restructuring, which saw Norman Broadbent and its other search and selection businesses sold, according to Barkers’ former chairman. 

In the month’s leading up to the collapse of BNB, which went into administration last week, the company followed a policy of disposing of its non-core businesses, such as Hamlin Knight in January and executive search firm Norman Broadbent in November 2008.

Jason Collins, now a member of Penna Barkers’ senior management team, told Recruiter that the cost of restructuring the BNB business “didn’t help”.  He also blamed a number of BNB group issues for the demise, which he said had been “a huge drain on the firm’s cash flow.”

Kevin Murphy, one of the administrators from Chantrey Vellacott, told Recruiter that the main reason for BNB’s collapse was problems with the group’s property leases, as well as the size of its pension liabilities. “This was manageable when the company was turning over £100m, but not when it went down to £60m,” said Murphy. In 2006 BNB had a turnover of £88m.