The National Association of Paper Merchants

Promoting the Value of the UK Paper & Board Merchant

Phoenix Companies

NAPM Gets Tough on "Phoenix Companies"

The National Association of Paper Merchants is now registered (March 2004) with The Information Commissioner under The Data Protection Act and will now commence to compile a register of the personal details of directors of failed printing companies. A “failed” company in the eyes of The NAPM is a company that has entered into administration, receivership or liquidation due to being insolvent and where that fact is duly recorded as a matter of record within the public domain.

The register will be available to all members of The NAPM when setting up new customer accounts in order to “crosscheck” the directors of that new account particularly when it is potentially a “phoenix” company. The failure rate of so-called “phoenix” companies within the printing industry is considered by all of the major merchants to be unacceptably high.

The President of The National Association of Paper Merchants, Martyn Eustace, who is CEO of The HSP Group, says

“This is a major initiative taken by The NAPM in an attempt to stem the flow of the huge amount of bad debt suffered by the paper merchanting industry over the last five years and to root out the major culprits.

Bad debts coupled with the ever increasing cost of credit insurance has become one of the major cost factors that merchants have had to grapple with in recent times. Merchants are frequently asked by their printer customers to do something about “phoenix” companies who generally damage the reputation of the printing industry and this initiative shows that The NAPM is serious about tackling this problem for the benefit of all”.