THE company that ran three Molly’s Den shopping emporiums until it went into liquidation in 2019 has been wound up with no money to pay creditors.

Liquidators were appointed to MD Emporium Ltd in July 2019, almost two months after its former director took his own life.

The liquidation meant the loss of 26 jobs and left many independent traders out of pocket after they paid to rent stalls in the emporiums at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Winchester.

A notice published by Lisa Duell, of liquidators RSM UK Restructuring Advisory, said the company’s affairs had been fully wound up.

MD Emporium owed £28,310 to its one secured creditor, NatWest Bank, according to the liquidators’ final report.

It owed £8,233 to preferential creditors and £292,790 to unsecured creditors, many of whom were small traders.

The report said: “There are insufficient funds to allow a dividend to be paid to any class of creditor.”

In a previous report, the liquidators said the Molly’s Den trading name had been sold for £1,000.The business and assets of the Bournemouth premises were sold for £5,000. There was £1,203 in the business’s tills and £1,515 in a bank account.

Molly’s Den had emporiums at Francis Avenue, Bournemouth; Bridge Street, Christchurch; and Easton Lane, Winchester.

The Bournemouth site became The Den under new ownership.

An inquest in 2019 found that John East-Rigby had taken his own life in May that year, on the same day he resigned as director of MD Emporiums. He had taken over Molly's Den in 2017. 

His wife Cherry became a director but liquidators were called in less than two months later.

A statement of affairs provided by Mrs East-Rigby to liquidators in 2019 estimated that the business owed £243,564, to a list of trade creditors, most of them individuals, as well as £5,000 to HMRC. It was estimated to have £6,204 in assets.

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