FRP warns there will be little left for creditors when three year McClure Naismith wind up is completed

FRP Advisory, administrator of McClure Naismith, has warned creditors of the failed Scottish legal firm that they are unlikely to receive any money when the firm is eventually dissolved.

FRP were appointed to take over at the stricken firm in August 2015, ending nearly 200-years of the commercial solicitors, headquartered in Glasgow and with further offices in Edinburgh and London.

At the time McClure Naismoth has been suffering several years of spiralling costs and stagnating revenues under chairman Robin Shannan..

In total 80 members of staff were found places at other firms after FRP we called in, but 42 staff, including partners have been made redundant.

Among those to pick up partners from the defunct firm include Maclay Murray & Spens (MMS), Harper Macleod, Burness Paull and Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie.

An initial 12-month period of administration was extended by a further 12 months last August and is expected to hit three years in total, and joint administrator Tom MacLennan, a partner at FRP, has now said there is unlikely to be any money left to distribute at the end of the period.

In his progress report for the six months to the end of February, Mr MacLennan said that while he and fellow administrator Iain Fraser had managed to recover £855,000 but the cost of doing so was £790,000.

“As a result of the additional time and increased legal costs incurred dealing with the fragmentation of the and the transfer of clients and client files to firms not party to sale agreements, together with lower than anticipated realisations from debtors and work in progress, it is unlikely there will be a distribution to any class of creditor,” he said.

So far the administrators have recovered just over £720,000 of the money owed to the company by clients and just £114,000 for legal work that McClure Naismith had already carried out but had not billed clients for.