CREDITORS who were owed around £4 million when Simclar was put into administration are unlikely to get a penny, while Bank of Scotland faces a potentially significant loss on the £28 million it lent the firm.

However, Simclar’s owner Sam Russell said he was “totally gutted” about the problems at the electronics firm and claimed it had provided huge benefits for parts of Scotland.

“I’m so upset about this; it’s hard to come to terms with,” Mr Russell told The Herald. “It happened so quickly.”

Two months after Simclar Group was placed into administration with the loss of 138 jobs at its Dunfermline base, a progress report by the administrators made grim reading for creditors who lacked security for their debts.

Simclar was formerly a star of the Scottish electronics industry, but with no prospect of winning support from creditors for a restructuring that would allow Simclar Group to survive intact, the administrators are now trying to raise as much as they can by selling off the businesses and assets.

The administrators said they are still in talks with “multiple interested parties”.

However, they added: “We do not expect to be able to pay a dividend to the unsecured creditors of any of the companies.”

Experts from Deloitte were appointed administrators to the group and three subsidiaries on June 27.

A statement of Simclar’s affairs at June 27, prepared by directors, lists 185 unsecured creditors, including many based in Scotland.

Simclar International owed the Honeywell Control Systems business in Lanarkshire £191,000. The group’s auditor Grant Thornton was owed £54,000.

Additional amounts were owed to Simclar’s operations in China and America, which are not subject to the administration.

Bank of Scotland may lose heavily after acting as Simclar’s banker for years. The director’s statement of affairs said Bank of Scotland was owed £28,081,300 when the administrators were appointed, secured by floating charges over some assets.

In their report the administrators stated: “After discharging the costs of the administration there will not be sufficient realisations from floating charge assets to fully repay the bank.”

The report will focus renewed attention on the conduct of directors. Mr Russell was criticised recently by John Park, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, for spurning a £10,000 offer from Scottish Enterprise to fund work on a survival plan in May.

However, Mr Russell said: “They could not have done anything; they certainly could not have saved jobs. It was so far down the line when they came in.”

Mr Park also said Mr Russell should use his wealth to fund redundancy payments to staff affected.

Companies House filings show the firm paid its highest paid director, assumed to be Mr Russell, £2.6 million remuneration in total in the five years to 2009. He received the bulk of the £600,000 dividends paid in that period.

Defending his record at Simclar, Mr Russell said: ”There are thousands of people who have worked at Simclar in Dunfermline and in excess of £50 million put into the Fife economy.”

Mr Russell closed Simclar’s Ayrshire subsidiary with the loss of 420 jobs in 2007.

A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group, which owns Bank of Scotland, said it would not comment on client affairs.