ONE of Belfast's longest-established advertising agencies AV Browne has gone into administration and has ceased trading with immediate affect.
James Neill and John Donaldson of insolvency practitioners HNH have been engaged to manage the affairs of the company, which was founded in 1926.
They are currently conducting a full appraisal of the business with a view to establishing its viability, and they added: "This may involve a sale of the business, and any parties with an interest should make contact immediately."
The company, which has most recently operated from offices at Hill Street in Cathedral Quarter, is understood to have faced a "challenging period" and had been impacted "by a number of external factors".
The administrators said their immediate priority is to communicate with employees, creditors, customers and landlords.
AV Browne is part of AVB Group, which also includes AVB Brand and McCann Dublin, both of which are unaffected by the administration.
It describes itself as "a full service advertising agency of people working together, applying our collective creativity to solve problems, make things different, better, effective, impactful, and sometimes just plain beautiful".
Under the directorship of George Lavery, it had a raft of clients across both the public and private sector, and through the years it scooped scores of local and national awards for its creative campaigns.
Among them was AV Browne's Crimestoppers campaign, which doubled the number of calls received from the public which could be followed up by police, and was recognised at a UK level for its success.
The agency also overseen a number of advertising campaigns for Tourism NI, which in 2016 it then attempted to sue after it was ruled out of the bidding process for a £14 million contract after missing the deadline for a tender submission.
In a High Court case, counsel for AV Browne claimed the agency was unfairly ruled out of contention for the contract after a government website froze.
Counsel argued that the agency missed a tendering deadline for advertising and design work over a period of up to four years "due to the blockage in the system used for submitting bids".
A judge had been told that amounted to a breach of the principles of equal treatment, non-discrimination and proportionality.
But AV Browne suddenly ended the legal action, with no further reasons disclosed, and no order for costs was made between the parties.
