Basingstoke’s only nightclub Liquid has been shut down by administrators after its parent company went bust last week.
Administrators Ernst & Young announced today (November 2) that Liquid will be closed with immediate effect and 18 full time jobs will be lost.
The move comes a week after bosses at Luminar insisted that the Basingstoke club would remain open “for the foreseeable future”.
On October 27, Liquid’s parent company Luminar, which run 75 nightclubs across the country including Lava Ignite and Oceana, announced it had gone into administration.
A further 10 clubs have also been shut down, including Tru in Brighton, and Liquid and Envy in Swindon.
According to a statement released by Ernst & Young, the closures targeted venues that were losing money.
The statement read: “This exercise represents an acceleration of management’s ongoing turnaround plans for the business and reflects a rationalisation of the loss making clubs.
“The restructured business leaves a core estate of profitable trading clubs that have attracted interest from a number of potential buyers, and Luminar PLC’s remaining portfolio of night clubs will continue to trade.
“The closures will regrettably result in the redundancy of 300 full and part time employees. Employees affected by these closures will be offered appropriate support and advice throughout the redundancy process.”
Cash-strapped Luminar went into administration after failing to pay off an £84m loan from Lloyds TSB, Barclays Capital, and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Despite the bank bail-out, the company’s annual report filed in February this year showed that sales fell by 19 per cent to £137m. It recorded a pre tax loss of £1.1m for 2011, compared to 2010 where it pulled in a £5.5m profit.
The company blamed the recession, high youth unemployment, and fewer people parting with their cash for the downturn. It’s club in Market Square, Newbury shut down on September 24.
Warnings about the company’s future surfaced in August when it announced that its bank repayments had been pushed back to October 27.
But still lacking the cash, the company issued a statement last Wednesday that said the banks would not extend their repayments.
