Former tc bathrooms chair at distributor Cubico

Former chair of collapsed firm tc bathrooms, Craig Waddington is director of a newly-formed bathroom distribution company Cubico (UK) Limited.

According to company and director search website www.duedil.com, he is non-secretarial director.

The company is backed by Seneca Capital, which has three members on the board of Cubico; Patrick Bywater, Melanie Hird, Andrew Walls, along with Craig Waddington.

According to Companies House, Cubico was incorporated on May 17, 2012. However, Andrew Walls of Seneca Capital said: "The business was incorporated as a Sheffield-based firm with Companies House on May 17 2012, under the name of HLWKH 521 Limited."

Duedil.com states the company has been “open since October 24, 2012”.

However, Walls stated: "On 25th October we approached a law firm called HLW Keeble Hawson and instructed them to act for Seneca investments to set up a new company with a view to setting up a new trading business, Cubico.

"On the same day, HLW Keeble Hawson changed the name of the company they had already incorporated to Cubico UK Limited.

"On the 29th October 2012, Craig Waddington was appointed as a director of Cubico UK Ltd and the following day we completed our investment."

The company set-up and appointment of Craig Waddington happened after - but within the same month - tc bathrooms ceased to trade.

Craig Waddington is joined by former tc bathrooms colleagues which form the management team. They are Andrew Hopkinson, an ex-director of tc bathrooms and Scott Tattersley, also from tc bathrooms, who is now sales director of Cubico.


The company boasts a warehouse in Leeds which, Cubico reports, is holding stock including bathroom furniture, taps, shower cubicles, valves and sanitaryware for nationwide delivery. And according to a Cubico staff member, the company is already trading.

Read more on this story in the March issue of Kitchens & Bathrooms News.

tc bathrooms ceases trading

Following tc bathrooms adminstration, the company has held a sale of its entire stock, at its warehouse in Dewsbury, and now ceased to trade.

The stock was acquired by bathstore.com and although the figure has not yet been finalised, it will be included in the proposals to creditors by December 18, 2012.

Joint administrator Hunter Kelly said: “We received some expressions of interest in various parts of the business from a number of parties. No offers were made that included both the trade and retail operations of the business.

“Following the sale of stock – one of the Company’s most significant assets – the business has ceased to trade and is in the process of being wound. As a result, it has been necessary to make a further 68 redundancies. The remaining staff are being retained to assist us in winding down the business.”

The administrator is still seeking a buyer for the 205,000 warehouse in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.

It is still unknown how much money the companies owes or the number of creditors.

tc bathrooms was a distributor and retailer of bathroom equipment and furnishings and operated 17 retail showrooms across the country. It employed 187 people, including 47 in showrooms across the country.

The administrator cited the economic downturn, contraction of new housing and refurbishment markets, as well as it being unable to service its debt which had funded a ‘recent consideration expansion’.

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EDITOR’S COMMENT: Distributor disarray

Kitchens & Bathrooms News Editor,
Philippa Turrell

Just what is happening to the distribution business? First AWA Bathrooms announced its intention to stop trading from December 2012 and now tc bathrooms has gone into administration. We all know the market is tough out there – but that tough? And is it the only plausible reason for distribution companies to be suffering? While we all know the economic climate is far from easy, has it just continued to exacerbate issues already taking hold in the distribution sector?

Of course, distributors could be more open to economic pressures than any other business, with spiralling petrol costs causing logistics to soar. But, equally, perhaps a clue could also lie in a comment made by joint administrator of tc bathrooms, Hunter Kelly from Ernst & Young, which, in addition to the economic climate, stated tc bathrooms had “been unable to service the debt taken on to fund its recent consideration expansion”. So, are in fact, distributors in danger of trying to extend their business just too far?

AWA Bathrooms was a regional distribution outfit, servicing the South, before going national and opening (then subsequently closing) a Northern depot in Manchester. And in a recent interview on kandbnews.blogspot.com, chairman of Swift Electrical says distributors now offer too many brands. It points to distributors seeking to become generalists, rather than specialists, in order to gain a larger slice of a smaller, and (some may say) diminishing, pie.

And, then, there are retailers looking to enter the distribution market by sourcing their own goods from overseas, in a bid to gain a USP and to prevent customers from ‘like-for-like’ shopping around. The demarcation lines of ‘who does exactly what and where’ in the bathroom and kitchen industry have become increasingly blurred, if not completely removed.

So what are the answers for bathroom and kitchen distributors, which are not only in competition with businesses in their own channel, but perhaps now even selective retail showrooms? Well, that’s the $1million question.  Could it simply lie within the old adage “turnover for vanity, profit for sanity”? Undoubtedly (as in the case of tc bathrooms), a catalogue of issues can drive a business into administration. But with news that parties are already interested in buying tc bathrooms, let’s just hope that this distributor can be saved and show it’s not game over for this sector.

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tc bathrooms blasts administration rumour

National distributor tc bathrooms has hit out at suggestions that the company has been placed in administration. The rumour has been circulated for weeks, however had recently gathered pace on twitter with retailers looking for confirmation or a denial.

However, managing director of tc bathrooms Martin Chalcraft was quick to slam the speculation, stating that there was “no truth whatsoever” in the gossip. He countered: “I am very frustrated at the negativity it brings.”

Speaking exclusively to Kitchens & Bathrooms News, Martin Chalcraft said he believed the rumour was initiated by rival bathroom businesses, stating: “It has definitely come from competitors.”

He said: “When people are quite, reps don’t have a lot to talk about and not a lot to sell. Some of our customers are quieter than they like and normally [reps] wouldn’t get the time of day.”

He added that product shortages, may have led companies to mistakenly think tc bathrooms was in financial trouble: “We’ve had a lot of stock shortages over the last couple of months and I think it has emanated from there. The reason being was the final quarter of last year, for us, was very quiet. We saw our trade business drop back quite significantly and as any prudent business would, we cut back on our supply, to obviously match supply and demand, that’s judicious in anyone’s book.”

Chalcraft continued: “Since kbbBirmingham in March, we had a fantastic show. The product, the new brochure and the pricing structure was received better than I expected, to be honest. And to some degree, it caught us out because we still had production levels at a level which weren’t then sufficient for demand.”

Since tc bathrooms imports its products from the Far East, it took time to ramp up production. Chalcraft said: “It was only in August that we found stock levels back to where they really should be and they’re probably not really where they should be in utopia. But I think off the back of frustration of customers in some lines, it wasn’t across everything, it was unfortunately across the best-selling products, I think people put two and two together and came up with five.”

However he pointed out: “Let me be clear. This business is doing fine. We’re not going into administration. We’re not in administration.”

When asked if the business had been in administration, Chalcraft exclaimed: “Christ, no! At half year, my business is up 10% on the prior year like-for-like. That’s a statistic that not many MDs could boast about, currently in the industry, I would guess.” He added: “I’m profitable and I’m well run and there’s not a lot more to add, if I’m honest.”

Dewsbury-based tc bathrooms was established in 2000, operates from a purpose-built, 205,000 sq ft warehouse and distribution centre and employs 166 staff. It supplies a range of bathroom products from cast iron baths, through to furniture, steam cabinets, taps and sanitaryware.

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