A COLLAPSED historic electronics firm went out of business owing more than £12.4million, it has been revealed.

But TV manufacturer Blackburn Microtech Solutions was dealt a fatal blow when its only customer demanded a 30 per cent reduction in prices, according to administrators.

Accountants Zolfo Cooper said Microtech Solutions had been vulnerable since 2007 when its parent company stopped covering its losses.

It had become a specialist supplier of increasingly obselete cathode tubes used in old-fashioned TVs.

Microtech Solutions at its peak employed 7,500 people in Philips Road, Whitebirk, and can trace its roots to the giant former Mullards firm.

But its downfall came when a deal with a Chinese customer fell through.

Zolfo Cooper said the buyer, Hua Fei of China, was a fellow group company of LG Philips, but its refusal to negotiate over the price of cathode tubes left the Blackburn firm unable to pay suppliers.

A month later it was in administration and after a hunt for a buyer failed 115 people lost their jobs.

The report to Companies House showed the business failed with unsecured debts of £12.4m.

Most of this, £9.8m, was owed to the parent company, Holland-based LP Displays, which is also in administration.

Former bosses of the firm have bought part of it for £75,000, to trade under the name Cathem Limited.

The new company is registered to the Blackburn home of former Microtech Solutions finance chief Aasim Mumtaz.

Mike Damms, president of the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce, said: “The closure of this factory felt like the end of a very long era.”