RYE CMS, the company through which CMS Brembana CNC milling and routing machines started to be distributed this year, depriving both Pisani and A J Lopez of the agency, called a meeting of creditors on 19 November (after we had gone to press) with a view to appointing liquidators.

Before that, on 11 November, a new company called CMS Group UK Ltd started trading. It recruited Philip Haith, who headed stone machinery sales for RYE CMS.

According to Sanjiv Ralham at SCM House in Nottingham, CMS Spa would rescue a number of customers who had paid deposits for CMS machines. It was not clear at that time what would happen to service arrangements on Brembanas.

SCM is an Italian manufacturer of CNC milling and routing woodworking machines that bought 51% of CMS in July this year. SCM boast worldwide sales of £450million, 2,000 employees and 12 factories.

CMS, who make CNC milling routing machines for wood, glass, aluminium and plastic, as well as the stone-working Brembanas, bought into UK competitors Rye Technology in High Wycombe in May 2001. Rye made CNC machines for wood, aluminium and plastic. The ranges were combined and rationalised and manufacture was moved to Italy.

Adam Kingdon, managing director of RYE CMS, said: "We consider ourselves part of the CMS group not a distributor."

RYE CMS started distributing Brembanas in January. Brembanas had traditonally been distributed in the UK by London machinery company A J Lopez, but Pisani, competitors in London and Matlock, Derbyshire, had tried to claim the agency for themselves in 2001. For half the year they both sold Brembanas until RYE CMS took exclusivity of Brembana for themselves.