Compulsory liquidation - winding up:

There are a number of points of similarity:

(a) in a compulsory (but not a voluntary) liquidation the directors have to submit a statement of affairs to the Official Receiver as provisional liquidator. If a receiver is appointed under a floating charge covering the company's undertaking as a whole he too is entitled to be given a statement of affairs.

(b) accountants who specialize in insolvency may be appointed as liquidators or as receivers (sometimes they combine these positions in the same company but professional opinion in the U.K. has hardened against this position since there can be difficult conflicts of interest to resolve between unsecured creditors and members on one side and secured creditors on the other);

(c) a receiver appointed under a floating charge is also manager of the business (or a manager is appointed to assist him). His function is to continue to carry on the business on a going concern basis. The liquidator's function is to sell the company's assets on the best terms he can get. As closure costs (redundancy payments to employees etc.) can be heavy a liquidator may decide to carry on the business with a view to selling it as a going concern. But this is only one of the alternatives open to him;

(d) neither liquidator nor receiver usually has the assets of the business vested in his legal ownership (though a liquidator may obtain a court order for assets to be vested in him under CA, s.240 - but this is not common). Both liquidator and receiver have control of the company's assets.