Defunct dried fruit and nut specialist Julian Graves failed to attract bidders in the administration process because of its “lack of stand-alone management”, according to the administrator’s report

Eleven parties expressed an interest in the business as a going concern but 10 of these did not lodge a bid. The Deloitte report blamed the management structure as well as the business’ failure to make a profit.

Julian Graves was owned by NBTY, which operates Holland & Barrett, and shared the majority of its management across the group.

The retailer had traded at a loss since it was acquired by NBTY in 2008, with the exception of the year ending September 30, 2010.

The retailer collapsed into administration in July and disappeared from the high street at the beginning of August after Deloitte was unable to find a buyer, as revealed by Retail-Week.com.

One bid was lodged by an unnamed party for part of the Julian Graves business, but Deloitte said the offer was “significantly lower” than the amount that could be made through selling stocks through on-going trading.

Deloitte said that despite Juliam Graves experimenting with new products, rationalising its retail property estate and making cost savings through leveraging the group synergies, the retailer’s trading performance “did not improve”.

Documents revealed the company generated £27.8m in turnover for the nine months to July 2 2012. This is against the previous year’s £46.5m turnover for the year to September 20 2011.

Julian Graves’ assets were valued at £2.2m.

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