Lighting and electrical distributor calls in administrators, axing 58 staff at its subsidiaries Ring Lamp Company and Trident.
The company, which was formed in September last year following the merger of Ring Lamp Co and Trident Ltd, yesterday appointed Hunter Kelly and Charles King of Ernst & Young as joint administrators.

Associated Lighting Group employed 123 people - 94 at Ring Lamp Company and 29 at Trident. Of these, 33 members of staff have been made redundant at Leeds-based Ring and 25 at Trident's Salford site.

Several directors resigned from the boards of Ring Lamp Company and its parent Associated Lighting more than a month ago, including Bruce Davidson, who held his post for almost 20 years.

Mr Davidson tendered his resignation on July 1 - the same day as fellow director David Green, who also held a directorship on both boards, following the merger of his company Trident with Ring in September. Another director, Andrew Rhodes, who joined Ring in September, handed in his resignation on July 9.

Ernst & Young's Mr King commented; "Management has been working hard to integrate both businesses, but surplus stock, pressure from creditors and difficult market conditions earlier in the year have ultimately led to our appointment.

"We intend to continue to trade the business whilst seeking a buyer. The Lighting Factory Shop on Gelderd Road in Leeds remains open for business."

Interested parties should contact Gurpreet Jagpal at Ernst & Young on 07814 029417.

While Companies House and Creditsafe still show Ring Lamp Company and Associated Lighting Group as active, Creditsafe had already cut its lending recommendation to zero, as they are overdue in filing financial results for the year to September 30, 2009.

Ring's sales plummeted from £69m in 2003-04 to £50.5m in 2004-05 and then £31.4m in 2005-06. There was a slight recovery to £32.8m in 2006-07, however sales dropped down again to £27.8m in 2007-08. Despite this, the company remained in net profit until 2007-08, when it went from a net profit of £2.2m to a net loss of £7m.

Calls to its Leeds-based office went unanswered today and the company that hosts Ring Lighting's website told DIY Week it has also been trying to reach the wholesaler to determine the future of the site.

While the domain name still appears to be registered, the site is no longer active and a spokesperson for An Agency Called England, who hosts the website, explained: "I'm not sure what's happening. We're actually trying to get hold of them ourselves to find out what's going on. We had a conversation with them a year ago, asking us to take it [the site] down."

He added: "I think they were taken over by another company but I'm not sure what's going on now."