CASHFLOW problems have been blamed for the decision by an advertising and marketing group to call in administrators.

Staff working in subsidiaries of the Communicore Holdings Group, based at Turkey Mill, Ashford Road, Maidstone, and Tenacre Court, Harrietsham, face a period of uncertainty while the financial situation is sorted out.

The group includes Link ICA, an award-winning advertising agency, and Red MC, a design and advertising agency.

Former subsidiary Edwards Harvey, the long-established public relations firm, has been sold to managing director Pip Clarkson in a management buyout.

Alan Bell, group chairman, said: "The businesses have not gone bust, it's a cashflow situation and we have run out of the amount of cash we need to trade satisfactorily.

"We asked for some professional advice and they said the best thing to do was to put it into administration."

Mr Bell added that administration gave the company a "window of time to make sense of where we are, to regroup and move ahead".

He said it was a short-term problem and he hoped the situation would be sorted out as soon as possible.

He had taken a bigger shareholding in the group, the companies were trading normally and it was "business as usual". No staff had lost their jobs, he said.

He insisted that creditors would be paid, but he could not say how much until the administrators - London-based accounting firm Berg, Kaprow, Lewis - had completed their inquiries.

He said: "It's my expectation that everybody we owe money to will be paid. We have a very successful business and we are a victim of our own success."

Communicore had lucrative advertising and media contracts with P&O Ferries but lost the media deal some time ago.

At one time, Link ICA was rated the 13th fastest-growing company in the UK and won the Business Development Award in the prestigious Kent Business Awards in 2001.

Meanwhile, the jobs of 12 staff at Edwards Harvey are safe after managing director Pip Clarkson, a former senior journalist, led a management buyout. She bought the company from the administrators for an undisclosed sum.

She said: "All jobs are secure, it's business as usual."

Richard Harvey, a founder of the company more than 20 years ago, remains chairman. He sold the company to Communicore almost three years ago.