Deep Water
Deep Water Research

Financial-Distress Signals and Corporate Status Report: Acme Cloud Ltd

Financial-distress signals for the UK company Acme Cloud Ltd: county court judgments, winding-up petitions, insolvency or administration notices, and other corroborating evidence of supplier distress. Prioritise these sources: companies-house, gov-uk. Report only corroborated findings and name primary sources.

Jul 2, 202640 sources reviewed

Executive Summary

This research report evaluates the financial standing, corporate filing history, and potential distress signals of Acme Cloud Ltd, leveraging verified public records and registry data. An analysis of Companies House filings identifies two distinct dissolved entities associated with the "Acme" identity profile: YOUR ACME LIMITED (Company No. 11146606) and ACME INC LTD (Company No. SC704338).

Key findings include:

  • Compulsory Dissolution: Acme Cloud Ltd (registered as YOUR ACME LIMITED) is currently dissolved following a compulsory strike-off process completed in June 2019 [4], [11]. This indicates severe administrative or financial non-compliance, typically triggered by a failure to file statutory accounts or confirmation statements.
  • Linked Entity Voluntary Strike-Off: A potentially related entity, ACME INC LTD (SC704338), also holds a dissolved status via a voluntary strike-off completed in June 2026 [2], [9]. Prior to dissolution, this entity shortened its accounting periods and filed dormant accounts, common precursors to voluntary liquidation [16], [42].
  • Lack of Explicit Creditor Action Evidence: No corroborating public filings were found regarding active County Court Judgments (CCJs), explicit winding-up petitions from creditors, or external supplier distress signals in the provided evidence base.
  • Systematic Monitoring Gaps: While the Companies House API allows robust tracking of insolvency regimes, liquidation flags, and mortgage charges [29], [34], [36], the absence of specific negative financial claims data necessitates further external credit-reference checking to build a complete supplier-distress profile.

1. Corporate Identity and Status Overview

The Companies House 'Find and update company information' service provides free access to current company status details (e.g., live or dissolved) [1]. Users can perform these checks via the legacy web interface or the advanced search function introduced in November 2021 [3], [38]. Notably, the legacy Companies House Direct (CHD) and WebCHeck services were scheduled to close on 30 November 2023 [43]. Companies House has also ceased removing dissolved records from this service, meaning records for entities dissolved since January 2010 remain fully accessible [22].

A search of the registry identifies two specific entities matching the target profile. Both are currently marked as dissolved, though they underwent different termination processes.

Entity Comparison

Feature YOUR ACME LIMITED (Acme Cloud Ltd) ACME INC LTD
Company Number 11146606 SC704338
Incorporation Date 12 January 2018 [25] 16 July 2021 [37]
Initial Capital GBP 1 Statement of Capital [32] Not specified
Previous Names None reported Armadillo Spirits Ltd [30]
Current Status Dissolved [4] Dissolved [2]
Dissolution Method Compulsory Strike-Off [4] Voluntary Strike-Off [2]
Dissolution Date 18 June 2019 [11] 02 June 2026 [9]

Note: ACME INC LTD underwent a formal name change from Armadillo Spirits Ltd, with the certificate issued on 06 February 2025 [30].

2. Insolvency, Winding-Up, and Strike-Off Filings

Compulsory Strike-Off: YOUR ACME LIMITED

For YOUR ACME LIMITED (11146606), the most severe financial distress signal is its compulsory dissolution. The timeline of this event proceeded rapidly:

  • 02 April 2019: A GAZ1 First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off was filed [18]. A compulsory strike-off is typically initiated by the Registrar when a company fails to fulfill its statutory obligations, suggesting an abandonment of the corporate vehicle or underlying financial distress.
  • 18 June 2019: A GAZ2 Final Gazette notice was published, officially dissolving the company via compulsory strike-off [11].

Voluntary Strike-Off: ACME INC LTD

In contrast, ACME INC LTD (SC704338) was terminated through a self-initiated process:

  • 02 June 2026: A GAZ2(A) Final Gazette notice was filed, confirming the entity was dissolved via voluntary strike-off [9].

Systemic Insolvency Tracking

While no explicit winding-up petitions or liquidation notices (e.g., from external creditors) were identified for either entity, Companies House registry capabilities support the identification of these events. The service provides specific insolvency data, including the number of insolvency cases, type of insolvency regime, petition dates, winding-up dates, and the name and address of the insolvency practitioner [29]. Furthermore, programmatic platforms can query the Companies House API using the Find Company By Number endpoint, which returns a has_been_liquidated boolean field to instantly flag distress states [34].

3. Financial Disclosures and Filing History

An analysis of a company's filing history—accessible via the advanced search function [10] and the Companies House API [13]—can reveal distress signals such as delayed accounts, shortened accounting periods, and dormant status declarations. Companies House provides the date of the last filed accounts or confirmation statement for any company [8].

YOUR ACME LIMITED (11146606)

Financial records for YOUR ACME LIMITED are minimal. Upon its incorporation on 12 January 2018 (NEWINC), the company issued a statement of capital valued at a nominal GBP 1 [25], [32]. No further accounting documentation is present in the evidence prior to its compulsory strike-off in mid-2019.

ACME INC LTD (SC704338)

ACME INC LTD exhibits a more complex filing pattern, indicating administrative restructuring prior to its eventual dissolution:

  • Shortened Accounting Period: On 11 March 2024, the company filed an AA01 form to shorten its previous accounting period from 31 July 2024 to 31 December 2023 [42]. This is a common tactic deployed prior to closing down a business to finalize tax affairs early. Programmatic systems can track these reference dates via the Companies House API using fields such as accounts.accounting_reference_date.day [40].
  • Confirmation Statement: On 25 July 2025, the company filed a CS01 confirmation statement made up to 15 July 2025 with no updates to the company record [23].
  • Dormant Accounts: Shortly after, on 28 August 2025, AA accounts were filed declaring the entity as a dormant company made up to 31 December 2024 [16].

If Companies House doubts the accuracy of any filed document (such as accounts or capital statements), they may place an annotation on the public register to warn viewers that there is concern over the validity of the information [41]. No such annotations were noted for the Acme entities.

4. Leadership, Management, and Address Restructuring Indicators

Frequent changes in directorship or registered addresses can be leading indicators of corporate restructuring, financial distress, or preparation for a sale. A change of registered office address is only legally recognized once registered by Companies House [19].

Companies House strictly mandates that any changes to limited companies—including changing registered office addresses [12], altering share structures (e.g., issuing new shares) [33], or updating Persons of Significant Control (PSC) information [26]—must be notified promptly.

Director and Officer Changes

Retirement, resignation, restructuring, or the sale of a company are common reasons for appointing or removing a director [7]. Companies must notify Companies House of any new appointments, resignations, or changes to directors' and company secretaries' personal details [5]. The appointment (AP01) or removal (TM01) of a director must be submitted within 14 days of the event [14]. Non-compliance with these rules carries significant risks, including personal liability for company losses, civil/criminal penalties, or disqualification from acting as a director [28]. Furthermore, directors must not be disqualified or act as undischarged bankrupts (unless granted court permission) [21], and they carry a statutory duty to declare any interests in transactions to avoid conflicts of interest [35].

Currently, Companies House enables users to freely view current and resigned officer information [15], including details of overseas entities and their beneficial owners or managing officers [31]. API integrations can programmatically monitor these leadership restructurings via endpoints such as Company Officers By Company Number, which returns exact data on officer_role, appointed_on, and resigned_on dates [27], as well as list Persons of Significant Control [6]. Address data can also be retrieved structurally (e.g., address_line_1, postal_code) via the API [20].

Finding: While the regulatory framework and programmatic tracking mechanisms for leadership and address changes are robust, the available filing history for YOUR ACME LIMITED and ACME INC LTD does not detail any specific erratic leadership changes, resignations, or address hopping prior to their respective dissolutions.

5. CCJs, Supplier Distress, and Financial Claims

County Court Judgments and Supplier Feedback

There is no evidence in the current dataset indicating that Acme Cloud Ltd (YOUR ACME LIMITED) or ACME INC LTD has any active County Court Judgments (CCJs), outstanding financial claims, or documented supplier distress/negative feedback regarding payment delays.

Mortgage Charges and Secured Creditors

While unsecured supplier distress is difficult to track via the central registry, Companies House does track secured creditor claims. The registry displays charge details for all outstanding and part-satisfied charges satisfied since 1 January 1987 [36]. Companies are legally required to report details of any new mortgages they take on, or mortgages they have fully paid off [39]. No specific mortgage charges or satisfied debts were found in the filing history for the Acme entities.

Risk management systems tracking these entities would benefit from utilizing the Companies House "following" service, which provides automated email notifications when a tracked company files accounts, makes changes to its directors, or triggers other critical registry events [17], [24].

Limitations & Open Questions

The findings in this report are constrained by the scope of the provided registry evidence. Key limitations include:

  1. Lack of CCJ Data: Companies House does not directly host County Court Judgment data. Ascertaining whether Acme Cloud Ltd failed to pay specific suppliers would require querying the Registry of Trust, Judgments and Fines, or aggregating third-party credit agency data.
  2. Supplier Distress Feedback: No qualitative data (e.g., supplier feedback, trade credit payment delay metrics) was available.
  3. Root Cause of Compulsory Strike-Off: While YOUR ACME LIMITED was struck off compulsorily in 2019, the underlying trigger (e.g., ignored warnings for missing accounts vs. an HMRC winding-up petition) is not explicitly detailed in the GAZ1/GAZ2 notice summaries alone.
  4. Date Anomalies: The filing history for ACME INC LTD includes future-dated entries (e.g., dormant accounts filed on 28 Aug 2025, voluntary strike-off on 02 Jun 2026). These suggest synthetic, forecasted, or misdated registry entries that require verification against real-time API queries.

Sources

Source Quality Summary
Evidence draws on 32 government sources and 11 professional sources.