Autoquake went into administration on March 17 after the business failed to secure enough capital investment or acquire enough stock to keep it going.

Autoquake had actually entered into the process of potentially merging or selling to another company at the end of 2010 which would have facilitated the eventual wind down of the company anyway.

In January 2011, investors informally confirmed that they intended on supporting Autoquake through the merger/sale process by providing a bridging loan. The bridging loan was intended to allow the company to continue trading for a period of 10-12 weeks.

The offer of a bridging loan was withdrawn on March 8 after Autoquake failed to find a buyer for the business.

On March 14 Autoquake came under severe creditor pressure from key creditors and so, as the company could not raise additional finance, the decision was taken by the directors to place the company into administration.

MCR recieved 46 expressions of interest for Autoquake’s online sales platform and intellectual property. It was sold to Carshop.co.uk, the used car supermarket group, for £350,000.

• For the full story on what The Car Shop intends to do with the Autoquake assets see the May issue of AM.
• To read MCR's full joint administrator report on Autoquake click here.