I have just read that there driver will not get payed what a shower bulmer are
If it was me I’d be tempted to lay a cable in the diesel tank or superglue the door locks up…
It’s a terrible shame for all the drivers and subbies but it’s no surprise really to me and just goes to reinforce my view that the whole “pre pack administration” thing is a complete farce and does the industry as a whole no favours.
Lets hope most/all of the drivers find jobs soon at hauliers who are capable of running at a profit.
Paul
repton:
It’s a terrible shame for all the drivers and subbies but it’s no surprise really to me and just goes to reinforce my view that the whole “pre pack administration” thing is a complete farce and does the industry as a whole no favours.Lets hope most/all of the drivers find jobs soon at hauliers who are capable of running at a profit.
Paul
and lets hope that the owners of the, now two, failed companies do not start up again 
repton:
Lets hope most/all of the drivers find jobs soon at hauliers who are capable of running at a profit.Paul
Here here.
Ken.
shuttlespanker:
and lets hope that the owners of the, now two, failed companies do not start up again
Indeed. Although I don’t know Jonathan Bulmer personally he’s a local lad who started up less than 10 miles from where I live and I know quite a few people who do know him and from what I hear he’s a nice enough chap but quite obviously not a very good businessman. Perhaps he should go back to farming where he started before he got big ideas about the haulage industry.
Paul
from the bulmers website
Drivers
No Vacancies
Office Staff
No Vacancies
Workshop and Depot
No Vacancies
repton:
shuttlespanker:
and lets hope that the owners of the, now two, failed companies do not start up againIndeed. Although I don’t know Jonathan Bulmer personally he’s a local lad who started up less than 10 miles from where I live and I know quite a few people who do know him and from what I hear he’s a nice enough chap but quite obviously not a very good businessman. Perhaps he should go back to farming where he started before he got big ideas about the haulage industry.
Paul
They were farmers, and he got into haulage to do the farm work in the area, during quiet times the lorries moved down to Hull when they started pulling road tanks with edible oils. They grew with IFF and IBC, now interbulk, but the jacks of all trades do not seem to control costs very well.
Busy Busy Bust 
I used to speak with Jonothan Bulmer quite a bit when I was at TRUCK, I even had a 580 Scania of his in a regular feature I came up with, I thought he was a pretty decent bloke, he was very high profile in a Stobart kind of way, distinctive livery, good spec trucks etc, from what I know of his operation he had a good business model, ok so the trucks were a bit over specced, but this was in the times of the driver shortage, so it helped retain and recruit drivers, I spoke with a few of them (not just hand picked yes men) and they were complimentary. The company managed to have a good run too, I had my dealings with them in 2001 and they never got into trouble until the recession started to bite.
To do things the way Bulmers did would mean that there costs were higher than most, in good times they could get away with charging a little more, but when the gordon brown stuff hit the fan they were in the same boat as everyone else, those with lower operating costs could afford to take a hit on rates and volumes, they couldn’t and down the pan they went, only to be reborn via pre pack.
Pre pack is no good to anybody but the financial institutes, they’re the ones that are responsible for it in the first place, they like it because it gives them a chance to recoup their losses at a later date and means that they don’t get left with, in the case of a failed haulier, a field full of snatched back lorries that are worthless on the used market because nobody is buying anything in the middle of a recession.
Banks and finance houses almost force companies in liquidation to follow the pre pack route, but look at the statistics, it’s only the larger operations that get pre pack, an owner driver or a bloke with 10 motors wouldn’t have a chance at it, as usual it’s the banks and the tossers in Westminster that benefit from it, they come back from their clandestine meetings in the karzis on Clapham Common and tell us pre pack will save jobs blah blah [zb]ing blah, yet in reality all it does is make more money for them, the BOCs
Supposedly Bulmers went bust this time because a customer didn’t pay him then rather than him mis-managing it this time although I would say it is his responsibility to credit check his customers regularly and not take on work if there is any doubt.
I think he really dropped the ball with his second chance and should have scaled it back big time and only done the “Peachy” work with far, far fewer motors. Some people never learn…
Asda’s Haulier of the year recently as well… 
newmercman:
I used to speak with Jonothan Bulmer quite a bit …he was very high profile in a Stobart kind of way…from what I know of his operation he had a good business model
newmercman:
he had a good business model
Surely going under twice kind of proves he didn’t.
Paul
vosa shold never let/give him a o licence again waht about the small people he willtake down with them …tyre companys vehicle repair shops and so on theres to many being granted licences and it obvious from past records they are not of good repute
As Oscar Wilde would have said, "to lose one business maybe regarded as a misfortune, to lose two businesses looks like carelessness.
repton:
newmercman:
he had a good business modelSurely going under twice kind of proves he didn’t.
Paul
In an ideal world newmercman would have been right but as I’ve been trying to tell him it’s not an ideal world and trying to compensate,for an uneconomically high cost operation,with high rates,is commercial suicide.
But if it’s another example of failed payment causing liquidation why did’nt they use factoring with payment cover for every invoice instead of relying on trust and luck 
.
Northern boy:
I have just read that there driver will not get payed what a shower bulmer are
there’s a government fund (or there was) to pay owed wages, redundancy, holiday pay, notice pay, however its capped at £380 topline per week. there’s also a 4 month limit and up to 8 weeks can be claimed for.
i was owed 1900 ish from a previous employer, i had wages frozen from the pre pack period as opposed to being paid 4 weeks late. so when they went bust finally, a few months later the owed money was older than 4 months on paper, so i only got a couple of hundred quid, £1650 down and nothing legally i can do
stevie
stevieboy308:
Northern boy:
I have just read that there driver will not get payed what a shower bulmer arethere’s a government fund (or there was) to pay owed wages, redundancy, holiday pay, notice pay, however its capped at £380 topline per week. there’s also a 4 month limit and up to 8 weeks can be claimed for.
i was owed 1900 ish from a previous employer, i had wages frozen from the pre pack period as opposed to being paid 4 weeks late. so when they went bust finally, a few months later the owed money was older than 4 months on paper, so i only got a couple of hundred quid, £1650 down and nothing legally i can do
stevie
But that has probably been scraped now 
stevieboy308:
Northern boy:
I have just read that there driver will not get payed what a shower bulmer arethere’s a government fund (or there was) to pay owed wages, redundancy, holiday pay, notice pay, however its capped at £380 topline per week.
Just as an aside, all the “capped limits” have just gone up slightly. A “Weeks wage” is now given to be £400 
In edit - The Social Fund (Employers N.I. Contributions ■■) still covers statutory redundancy payments in the case of insolvency. That’s probably why it’s capped to £400
repton:
newmercman:
he had a good business modelSurely going under twice kind of proves he didn’t.
Paul
Come on Paul, that proves nothing!
At this point in time, I will bet that not one poster in this forum has any idea whatsoever WHY Bulmers have gone under again. We’ve got a couple of people throwing around a few MMTM type stories, but we all know that plenty of truckers are pathalogical liars (sit in any RDC waiting room and you WILL get proof of that!), and some are just fantasists at best! Hence, it’s fair to assume that a reasonable portion of what you get told by a bunch of truckers will be pure ■■■■ .
It’s entirely possible that Bulmers have gone bust through blatant mismanagement. It is also quite possible that they had a good profitable business model, and that due to the failure of a key customer they have been left in a cash-flow situation that they cannot rectify.
If your biggest customer went bust tommorow and failed to pay what they owe you currently, could your business survive? The reality of 90-day payment terms (and if you can get Asda, Tesco or most other big firms to pay in any less you’re bucking the trend) means that you can have a lot of ‘risk’ sitting on the balance sheet despite having an otherwise healthy business!
I’m not saying Jonathan Bulmer is businessman of the year … but I’ll wait until I know some real facts before I start ripping the guy apart on a public forum, especially a guy who incidentally ran a profitable business for many years before his recent troubles!