AILING coffee chain Beanscene has filed for liquidation with branches likely to cease trading next week.
Solicitors for the company have lodged a petition at Paisley Sheriff Court asking that the Clarkston-based firm be wound up.
Nicola Ross, who is acting on behalf of Beanscene, said liquidation proceedings would begin next week unless challenged, which was "highly unlikely". Clients who are owed money by the coffee company, founded in 2000, have until November 12 to lodge claims with the court.
The last accounts filed by Beanscene Scotland Ltd show it had accumulated losses of £171,000 as of December 31 2012.
Ms Ross added that insolvency experts KPMG were the proposed liquidators.
A spokesman for KPMG said they were unable to comment on the case until formally appointed.
The latest development will bring the curtains down on a troubled few years for the chain, which was set up to rival multinationals like Starbucks and Costa Coffee.
At its height in the mid-noughties Beanscene had 16 cafes across Scotland and a turnover of £4.2 million. It now has fewer than ten outlets.
Beanscene went bust for the first time in July 2008, sparking a two-year probe by the Insolvency Service into its founder, Gordon Richardson, which eventually resulted in the entrepreneur being banned from running a company for six years.
Investigators found that before the firm went bankrupt the Scottish businessman had secretly transferred £189,000 from Beanscene accounts to pay off loans to another company - money which should have gone to creditors.
Beanscene was taken over in October 2008 by the owners of stylish Glasgow-based eaterie, Fifi and Ally, amid ambitious plans to grow both ventures.
However, in April this year Fifi and Ally co-founder Fiona Hamilton admitted she had abandoned her plans and had sold both brands to Newton Mearns-based leisure trade veteran, Stuart McKenzie.
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