The company was part owned by the 3i venture capital group which took a 28 per cent share of the business, investing around £79 million and most of that has been effectively wiped out by the crash, hitting 3i's shares.

But the biggest shock has come from a report in the Financial Times that Deloitte, the administrators have told creditors there is a £150-million hole in the company accounts which they are so far unable to trace. Few creditors now expect to get much of their money back.

It was disclosed earlier that British Seafood was hit by a liquidity crisis, due in part to the credit crunch. The tough conditions being imposed by banks caused some of them to withdraw trade credit, hitting the supply of working capital. British Seafood has a large business operation in Asia and the company relied on trade credit to pay fish suppliers in the Far East. However it did not get paid by the majority of its own customers until some time later which exacerbated the cash flow problems.

Earlier, Deloitte was saying it was increasingly confident that it can find a buyer for the business as en entirety.

The only good news from the affair is that one of the star performers, Five Star Fish of Grimsby, is trading normally and is not in administration. It has a big share of the food service market including fried fish shops, but it is not yet clear if a private buyer will come in or if it will be sold as part of British Seafood. According to the last known figures British Seafood had sales of around £324 million and a profits before tax, depreciation and interest of some £26 million..

Mark Holyoake, the head and founder of British Seafood was last year ranked 1,077th in the Sunday Times Rich List with a family fortune of around £50 million. He also took a major stake in and an Icelandic seafood company, but that was separate from British Seafood.

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