The liquidators of an off-licence chain with stores around Britain have instructed CAPA to conduct a full property audit on all sites the firm ever occupied.

M&O Trading, which at its peak had more than 180 employees, posted £25m in annual turnover and traded from 45 stores nationwide, entered liquidation in the early part of 2019.

The company, whose stores had traded for many years under the brands Hartley’s, Mulberrys, The Offie and Easy Hours, had previously acquired a network of former Threshers stores in around 2010, after the former off licence chain entered administration.

But M&O Trading later entered financial difficulty itself and ultimately, after several stores closed down, the business entered insolvency. William Batty and Hugh Jesseman, of the insolvency and restructuring firm Anthony Batty & Company, were appointed liquidators in January 2019. Stephen Evans, a colleague and insolvency practitioner at Anthony Batty & Company, was later added as a liquidator in June 2019.

The liquidators have now instructed CAPA to conduct the full property audit, meaning CAPA’s Audit team will use bespoke software for a forensic audit of all outgoings across every site M&O occupied.

The team will inspect all data on business rates, service charges, utility bills, all invoice data and other property costs to identify any anomalies, errors and overspend.   

CAPA will then recover any overspent sums to fuel total recoveries for M&O’s creditors.