Chillblast and CCL Computers are Under New Ownership

It’s a pretty tragic thing when such long-standing and iconic retailers go under, and frankly, I’m going to miss CCL Computers most of all if it does completely vanish from the PC landscape. I used to live quite close to the store and visited regularly in my teens for my computer hardware. Unfortunately, they closed their retail counter some years ago, which we always felt was what made the business so great, but now with the previous owners of CCL Computers and Chillblast – CCLCL Realisations 2024 Ltd (formerly CCL Computers Ltd) and DLL Realisations 2024 Ltd (formerly Decision Logic Ltd) filing for administration, they may be gone for good?

Tactus Group

If you’ve been following this news, you’ll know it’s just the latest in the Tactus Group saga, following Tactus buying Box.co.uk and then a lawsuit between the two of an alleged over-evaluation of the company. Box.co.uk later went into administration. Tactus Group later got hit with a late filing of accounts notice, which looks like the company was at risk of being struck off the Companies House records, along with other companies it owns such as Chillblast, Horizon, Geo, CCL, mendIT, and BIST Group.

CCL and Chillblast

Largely it seems the Tactus group was most significantly damaged by the acquisition of Box Ltd, of which there is still an ongoing claim against five former directors. To protect the rest of the businesses within the group, significant long-term funding was secured via Wilder Bidco to recapitalise the remaining companies of the group, which will soon become the “Chillblast Group”.

A Chillblast Group spokesperson sent us the following statement.

“The financial issues identified after the acquisition of Box caused considerable damage to the wider Group and as a result there remains an ongoing legal claim against five former directors of the company.
However, we’ve taken the necessary steps to protect the rest of our businesses from further damage and have secured significant long-term funding to recapitalise the remaining group of companies. This will ensure that we continue to serve our many customers and take advantage of significant growth opportunities in our target markets.”

What’s Next?

I guess the only thing left to do now is to wait and see, as this is clearly a complex matter and is still evolving, but honestly, I hope to see them come good on this in the long run. There are a lot of jobs tied up in these businesses, and they’ve been part of the UK PC hardware landscape for decades. We wish them well and eagerly await some good news in the coming weeks and months and of course, we’ll update you on anything else that we hear in the meantime.