THE UK arm of the Irish bookseller Hughes & Hughes, which collapsed in February, had liabilities of £1.26 million to its non-preferential creditors on its winding up, according to documents just filed with the companies office in Britain.

This emerges from a statement of affairs that was signed off by liquidator KPMG on April 27th and lodged with the UK registrar of companies this week.

The liabilities comprise £1.29 million in inter-company transactions with Dublin-based entities of Hughes & Hughes and unsecured creditors, who are owed £103,755.

This is offset by total assets of €117,590, the document shows.

Hughes & Hughes’s UK business ran bookshops at London City airport and Terminal Five at Heathrow airport.

In terms of inter-company debts, £481,304 is owed to Hughes Book Services Ltd of Wilton Place in Dublin, while £809,204 is outstanding to Hughes & Hughes Ltd, which is listed at the same address.

Its unsecured creditors include London City airport, which is owed €66,793.

Other large creditors are Macmillan in Hampshire, which is owed £16,476, Wiley publishers in west Sussex, which is owed £9,614, and Harper Collins publishers, which has an outstanding bill of £4,317.

Leading British bookseller WH Smith is owed £1,681, while distributor Menzies is owed £3,377.

Other creditors include British Telecom, mobile phone company Vodafone and courier group DHL Express UK.

Its assets comprise £45,500 in cash, £62,600 in stock and a VAT refund of £9,490.

Hughes & Hughes reopened for business in Dundrum, Swords, Santry and Ennis last week after its founder Derek Hughes put together a new investor group to run the business.

It is now owned by a company called Sivota Ltd, which is backed by Pierce Molony, who has been heavily involved in horse racing here and is an investor in the Bus Stop newsagents chain.

The bookseller had been placed into receivership in February, owing up to €15 million.

Its high-profile bookshops at Dublin airport were taken over recently by rival Easons