The redundancy axe has fallen on almost 700 employees at wholesale drinks supplier Waverley TBS after administrators said they were unable to find a buyer for the business.

The doomed firm, which had supplied alcoholic and soft drinks to companies including Madame Tussauds and Thorpe Park parent company Merlin Entertainments, entered administration on 2 October.

The business, which has 18 sites across the UK including London, Hemel Hempstead, Chesterfield and Gateshead, will continue to operate with a skeleton staff of 97.

Daniel Butters, head of the restructuring services at Deloitte in the North East, said: 'Regrettably, despite our continued efforts, we have been unable to identify a suitable buyer for the business. While we will continue to consider offers for the sale of the business as a going concern, we will now focus on realising value from the company's assets.

'Unfortunately, it has been necessary to make 685 redundancies at Waverley's sites across the UK.'

Deloitte said they were working closely with Job Centre Plus to provide support and advice to employees who have been made redundant, and the Insolvency Service's Redundancy Payments Service has put together a team to quickly approve claims for employee entitlements.

The company's fall comes just two years after it was bought from drinks giant Heineken by a private equity group in a bid to revive its flagging sales.

Waverley was once the wholesale arm of Scottish & Newcastle, which was itself taken over by Heineken in a joint deal with Carlsberg some four years ago.