IT took 12 years of hard graft for the Fin Machine Company, in Seaham, to win its first Queen’s Award, but only a few weeks for US investors to leave the firm battling for survival.

The County Durham precision engineer was in desperate need of a cash injection when an affiliate of the American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) made an approach last year.

Bosses at Fin, which makes parts for the car and air conditioning industries, welcomed the investment as a way to resolve some of its cashflow problems and exit administration.

The 29-year-old business had built up a global client list and demand for its services saw it receive the ultimate business accolade with The Queen’s Award for Export in 1997.

I understand that AIAC, which specialises in snapping up struggling companies, got Fin for a bargain £300,000.

When it became clear that the deal did not include Fin’s potentially valuable debtors book, the US investors appear to have lost interest in making further investment to secure the manufacturer’s long-term future.

It is a basic rule in any business transaction that when the other party stops taking your calls, something is amiss.

Fin boss David Jennings, after inviting a representative from AIAC to the Seaham plant to go through the books and agree the buy-out, said he believed he had found a good home for the business and its 115 skilled staff.

When his American contact stopped taking his calls over Christmas, alarm bills started to ring.

Mr Jennings told me he had other interested parties looking to invest, which made the American’s decision to place the company back into administration without consulting Fin’s management team such a bitter pill to swallow.

The slide back into administration further damaged Fin’s reputation.

As a secured creditor, AIAC can expect to get its investment back. The US group, which has repeatedly declined to comment on the deal, could also be set to earn a profit if Fin’s assets and contracts are sold off.

With no money to pay wages, the administrator last week recommended the plant be closed.

A compromise deal was struck which saw 89 people made redundant, leaving a skeleton staff of 27 to run the production, design, manufacturing, HR, software and finance departments.

There is talk of a management buyout.

In the meantime, staff working at the firm are not being paid.

Politicians and Business Durham are rallying around to rescue an important piece of North-East engineering.

It would be tragic that an investment which now bears all the hallmarks of an asset-stripping exercise is about to rob our region of some much-need skilled jobs.