A WELL-known recruitment agency which went into administration had its business and assets bought by a new owner who says it is now doing well.

SOS Recruitment ran into difficulties after losing a major client whose custom was worth £2million a year.

After the Bournemouth business went into administration in June, its business and assets were bought by accountant David Lawes.

He hired the original business’s sole director and founder, Julie Cook Hughes, to run it as branch manager.

The Old Christchurch Road-based company had 15 of its own staff and around 160 placed as temporary workers. All were transferred to the new business, avoiding job losses or missed wages.

Mr Lawes said the business was doing “fantastically” and that clients had stayed loyal since the changes in the summer.

He added: “Now we’ve jumped the first hurdle. If anyone were going to leave us, they would have gone by now. What we want to do now is expand that client base.”

Ms Cook Hughes said: “We’ve grown month on month. It might be a small amount but we’ve grown in terms of turnover and profit levels every single month.”

She added: “I do believe through any challenges we’ve endured over the last 12 months, our team has grown stronger and closer and more determined. That’s been a wonderful process.”

Joint administrators Carl Jackson and Simon Campbell of Quantuma were called in by Ms Cook Hughes after the business ran into problems. “The director advised that the company had become insolvent due to the loss of a large contract which had a turnover of over £2m per year,” the administrators wrote.

SOS Recruitment owed HMRC £669,297 for VAT and PAYE payments.

The administrators ran the business for a short while, but with HMRC unwilling to allow any more time to pay, they arranged to sell it to Mr Lawes for £25,001.

The original company has been placed into creditors’ voluntary liquidation. Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance has been repaid the £273,192 it was owed, while unsecured creditors who are owed an estimated £871,579 are expected to receive around 41p in the pound.

Ms Cook Hughes, named the Daily Echo Business Mother of the Year at the Dorset Venus Awards in 2015, said: “One of the most humbling parts of the whole process is the fact that nobody has walked away from me at all – my business clients and my staff. It’s superb they had their trust in me to do the right thing by the business.”