Walter Smith Fine Foods completed a five-year restructuring arc ending in a CVA

Walter Smith Fine Foods Limited entered a Schedule A1 moratorium on 25 November 2019. At that point, HSBC Bank PLC and Bell Finance Ltd both held outstanding fixed and floating charges over all the company's assets.

A Schedule A1 moratorium is a breathing space available to eligible companies under the Insolvency Act 1986. Directors remain in control while a supervisor oversees a short pause in creditor action. It is a precursor to a rescue plan, not an insolvency appointment in itself. The moratorium was filed pursuant to Paragraph 10(1) of Schedule A1 to the Insolvency Act 1986, and the Gazette notice was published on 27 November 2019.

The company

Walter Smith Fine Foods is a Birmingham-based meat processor and wholesaler, operating from Federation House, 383 Garretts Green Lane, Birmingham, B33 0UB. Its registered SIC activities cover the production of meat and poultry meat products, wholesale of meat and meat products, and retail sale of meat and meat products. The company was incorporated in August 2009, initially under the name GG130 Limited, and adopted its current trading name from 1 September 2009.

The directors

The directors at the time of the moratorium were Mark Edward Burnhope, Robert David Jones and Paul Richard Cadman, all appointed from incorporation in August 2009. Cadman also served as company secretary. He subsequently resigned from both roles on 1 December 2025. Anthony Charles Yorath had resigned as a director in October 2018, before the moratorium was filed.

The charges

HSBC Bank PLC holds a fixed and floating charge over all assets, created on 14 August 2017 and delivered to Companies House the following day. A fixed charge attaches to a specific identified asset; a floating charge covers assets that change over time, such as stock and debtors, and crystallises on insolvency. Bell Finance Limited holds two registered charges, both created on 28 April 2017 and delivered on 4 May 2017. All three charges remain outstanding on the register.

From moratorium to CVA

Timothy Frank Corfield was appointed as supervisor. The company then pursued a company voluntary arrangement, a formal agreement between a company and its creditors to repay debts over time while the business continues to trade. That CVA was completed on 17 January 2025, closing a restructuring process that had run for more than five years. Walter Smith Fine Foods is now recorded as active at Companies House and is operating under new management.

A moratorium-to-completed-CVA arc of five years is relatively uncommon. Most CVAs run for three to five years, and successful completion means the company has met its obligations to creditors under the arrangement's terms.

For creditors and suppliers

Now that the CVA has been completed, the arrangement's terms will have governed how creditor claims were handled throughout the process. Under a CVA, a supervisor issues communications to known creditors and manages distributions in line with the agreed proposal. Creditors who were party to the arrangement will have received their entitlements as set out in the CVA terms.

A proof of debt is the formal claim form a creditor submits to evidence the amount owed. Creditors who did not formally submit claims during the CVA process should take independent advice on whether any residual rights remain.

During the moratorium period, the legal pause under Schedule B1, Paragraph 43 of the Insolvency Act 1986 meant most creditor enforcement action was suspended without leave of the court. That protection applied from the moratorium's coming into force in November 2019.

Trade suppliers and customers with unpaid claims ranked as unsecured creditors in the arrangement hierarchy, behind secured lenders such as HSBC and Bell Finance. Employee wages, notice pay and redundancy claims are handled separately in insolvency-adjacent processes, with the Redundancy Payments Service able to meet certain statutory entitlements where an employer cannot.