Failed flooring chain promises to fill orders

A large Auckland retail flooring chain has gone under, but customers who have paid for materials are being promised their orders will be filled.

Penney Trading, formerly registered as Flooring Depot Auckland, went into receivership last Friday and has shut its Flooring Depot shops at Albany, Manukau and Henderson, although a support office at Albany is taking calls.

Arron Heath and Jeff Meltzer, of Meltzer Mason Heath, were appointed receivers but have not been able to discover what went wrong with the business.

"We only got invited to do this at short notice, and obviously, there are a lot of worried customers," Meltzer said.

The initial report is due on Christmas Day, but Meltzer said he would issue it next month and it would show what happened. A security holder had ordered the receivership but this party was "a private debenture holder", not a major trading bank.

The receivership had not been ordered by Penney Trading's sole director and shareholder, Mike Penney.

"We've spent the last week doing a stock take and a considerable amount of carpet on the premises has been paid for, waiting to be installed and we've traced that back to customers," Meltzer said.

"We're now in the process of getting that out to the customers. We are also completing contracts for anyone who has partially paid for carpet."