How to close a Ltd company down.

OK slightly complicated but I will try explain clearly. 20 years ago we started a small childcare business as a sole trader, 10 years later we started another small business and a much larger one. We merged all 3 into one Ltd company at that point. To prepare for potentially selling the larger company, we split the 3 out into separate ltd companies in May last year. It has become very clear how the badly the original business is doing now it is completely separate, it had been masked by the success of the other 2. So we now have had to make the decision to shut the business, very sad as it got us through some hard times when first started and we have a fantastic team of 10 part time staff, some of which have been with us for 15 years. We also have another larger ltd company in the same sector that is doing very well.

Hope that all made sense.

So how do we go about closing a ltd company? There is no way we would contemplate just going bust (although it is already bust!) and leaving our staff high and dry, also in our industry your reputation is key, if we get this wrong it could trash our very good name locally.

At the moment the business is in 7k debt to our main business, and is about 2k short of this months payroll. the second half of the year (to the end of April 2023) will be better but not enough to beak even. We would like to try and keep going until then and plan the closure properly.

Any advise would be gratefully received.