UNSECURED creditors of the business that used to run Bournemouth’s Flirt Cafe Bar stand no chance of seeing the £233,000 they are owed, administrators have confirmed.

The popular venue at the Triangle was sold to a new company, Flirt Catering Limited, in February this year after months of losses.

The former owners owed the 14 staff £16,904 in wage arrears. Staff received help from the joint administrators in making claims to the government’s Redundancy Payments Office.

Staff are deemed preferential creditors in the administration process, but the administrators’ latest update says: “On present information, there will be insufficient realisations to pay a dividend to preferential creditors.”

Unsecured creditors were owed an estimated £233,618, but the administrators do not expect them to receive any money.

The administrators have previously revealed that Flirt was days away from closing when it was sold for a total of £27,271 to Flirt Catering Ltd, a new and unconnected company.

The cafe bar had been bought from its founders in 2017 by Shaan Hussain, who attempted to prop it up with a loan of £98,000 as sales fell and losses mounted. By January of this year, it was not able to meet its wages and rent bills.

The progress report by joint administrators James Everist and Andrew Cordon, of CFS Restructuring, says secured creditors are expected to receive 1.25 pence in the pound.

A £159,000 debt to ThinCats Loan Syndicates was first in the queue for payment as it was secured with a fixed charge over the company’s assets. The lender was owed another £148,633 which will not be repaid.

Unsecured debts included £78,000 to HMRC, £98,000 to Jacks for Gents Ltd, of which Mr Hussain was a director until January, £20,000 to Mr Hussain and £2,788 to Hunt’s Foodservice.

The cafe bar’s new owners were given a licence to occupy the premises while new leases were agreed. The administrators said they had now received all outstanding rent and leases were “close to completion”.

The cafe bar reopened under its new ownership in February with an appeal for disillusioned customers to return and give it another try.