The bosses of a Black Country loans company which has closed with the loss of 70 jobs ploughed hundreds of thousands of pounds of their own cash into the firm in a desperate bid to save it, it has emerged today.

The three owners of Promise Finance have spoken of their battle to keep the company afloat and of their regret at having to shed jobs. Steve Walker, Suresh Bawa and Simon Carr, who launched the city firm in August 2003, admitted that the last six months had been a real struggle.

Sales and finance director Mr Bawa explained: “We’re just three Black Country boys who are passionate about what we do and have tried to do our best.

“We understand the anger staff feel but this isn’t what we envisaged when we set up the company five years ago.

“The credit crunch is really cutting deep, the cost of living is going up and everyone is hurting.

“We’ve read what employees have been saying and we completely understand their angst, but it’s not an easy time,” he pointed out.

“The business was doing very well then all of a sudden, it collapsed. Things started to go wrong in November and since then we’ve put hundreds of thousands of pounds of our own personal funds into it to try and keep it going.

“We didn’t invest all that time and money to see all that skill and expertise walk out of the door,” he said.

The Wolverhampton firm said that 20 staff would be redeployed elsewhere within the group, which includes master brokerage Promise Solutions, Promise Debt Solutions and Promise Home Information Packs. Another 13 part-time workers on fixed-term contracts will also be retained.

Mr Bawa said they had been forced to use a “robust” selection criteria.

“We’re going from a large business to a different set-up where we need staff who can multi-task. We’ve had to sit down and say ‘This is our business now, these are the people we need,’”he said.

“I recognise that this is a very difficult time and people will be thinking ‘It’s alright for them’ but we didn’t set up the business for this to happen.”

Steve Walker, who is group managing director added: “This whole situation is a matter of huge regret but the events that have conspired against us have made it unavoidable.”