A SELLER of Apple products whose Bournemouth shop closed without warning has been wound up, with creditors paid barely eight pence for every pound they were owed.

Staff at Solutions Inc’s Old Christchurch Road store were locked out and warned that the police would be called if they tried to get into the premises when it shut suddenly in February, 2019.

The Brighton-based business had six shops and 53 staff, who were all made redundant.

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Reports by liquidators later revealed the business owed £910,677 to unsecured creditors.

A final report by liquidators Philip Harris and Christopher Stevens of FRP Advisory said unsecured creditors were paid 0.91 pence in the pound in January this year, on top of a first payment of 7.14 pence in the pound made in 2021.

It said the affairs of the company have been fully wound up.

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The liquidators said unsecured debts – which consisted of £2,581 to employees and £36,602 to the Redundancy Payments Service – had been paid in full.

“We have received claims totalling £910,677 from unsecured creditors in these proceedings,” they wrote.

“Claims received have been agreed and a dividend of 7.14 pence in the pound was declared to unsecured creditors on February 19, 2021.

“A second and final dividend of 0.91 pence in the pound was declared to unsecured creditors on January 19, 2022.”

As previously reported, the company’s last set of accounts were for the year ending June 2017, when it reported a 60 per cent rise in the sale of iPhones but drops of 16.8 per cent for iPad sales and 10.7 per cent for computers.

Director Aiden Bowen wrote then: “Gross profit was down eight per cent due to iPhones being at a lower margin than other Apple products and Apple reducing our margin on products part way through the year.”

READ MORE: Apple retailer which closed without warning owed almost £1m to unsecured creditors

The business depended on Apple products for 84 per cent of its turnover.

It was planning an online store and was expecting a new deal from Apple to give it a better profit margin.

It was also intending to move the Bournemouth branch in bid to make it more profitable.