DBJ's Managing Director Milverton Reynolds.

Having failed in its recent bid to get an attractive offer for the divestment of Davon Uniforms International Limited, manu-facturers of uniforms and other apparel for the local and export markets, majority shareholder, the state-owned the Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ), is moving to liquidate the business.

DBJ has secured the nod of Davon's other shareholders and creditors for the liquidation of the company.

"It was advertised for divestment but no bids worthy of consideration were received," the DBJ said in an email response this week to Financial Gleaner queries.

"As a result of the unsuccessful effort to find an investor to take over the business, the shareholders and creditors voted to liquidate the business as its operations were no longer viable," said DBJ.

Deadline for creditors

DBJ holds 91 per cent of shares in the company, with the remaining shares being held by two Davon workers. The Financial Gleaner understands that the company could have up to 30 local and overseas creditors.

Creditors have been given until October to make their claims to liquidator Ken Tomlinson, who was appointed by the company to wind it up.

Davon was a loss-making company, "a situation which was unsustainable," said the DBJ, which declined to give the extent of the losses.

The company has been in operations since the early 1960s. Previously owned by Jamaican David Chin, Davon was placed in receivership and taken over by the former National Investment Bank of Jamaica, one of the forerunners to the DBJ, when the manufacturing concern ran into financial trouble in 2004.

According to the DBJ, Davon has, over the years, generated average annual sales of US$75 million and is said to still have a large customer base of some 400, facts the bank will be leveraging for the sale.

Up to earlier this year, the company had some 95 workers.

dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com