Begbies bruised by £5.7m loss

The insolvency firm Begbies Traynor crashed to a £5.7m loss last year after suffering a hit from selling its tax, offshore and red flag credit information businesses.

But it made more money winding-up or resuscitating failing companies, helping its continuing operations to a pre-tax profit of £5.5m for the year to May, despite a fall in revenues.

Begbies said that reflected cost-cutting from getting rid of almost 40 insolvency specialists during the year – it now pays the salaries of only 466 "corporate undertakers".

The company's executive chairman, Ric Traynor, claimed that it had been a "year of progress".