The first to fall

By all accounts, the Riverbourne Group and Astbury Wren, the two brokers that went bust, were good businesses.

They both had a solid trading history and there was nothing in the structure of either that would have pointed to failure. Indeed, Astbury Wren has already been snapped up by local competitor Risk Services (NW) and word has it that there are a number of suitors talking to the administrators looking after Riverbourne.

So what went wrong? Good businesses don’t just cease to be able to tra