Heating and Ventilating

Late on December 7, after the market closed, Worthington Nicholls' new board said it must write down its net assets to the value of £15.9m.
This figure, £15.9m will be required to reduce the net assets as reported in the management accounts as at September 30, 2007. This is £9.4m more than the £6.5m estimates made by the previous directors.

The new board made its latest announcement following a review of the company's accounts by KPMG.

On December 3, Worthington Nicholls suspended trading of its shares on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and trading resumed on December 10. On December 10,the company's shares were worth 12.75p per share, down from 17.5p on December 3 and a peak of £1.90 in April.

On November 22, the air conditioning installer announced that David Levis, Stephen Mulligan and Christopher Neilson had resigned as directors and it had appointed Rodney Mann deputy chairman, Simon Beart chief executive and William Good as group finance director.

At Worthington Nicholls' general meeting on December 6 some shareholders expected a resolution to remove Alaistair Stoddart as a director of the firm to be passed. However the resolution was not passed. Alastair Stoddart until recently was acting executive chairman before he resigned from the role.

The November 22 appointments follow September's resignation of the company's chief executive Mark Worthington.