What on earth is going at Creightons, the Storrington-based perfumes and toiletries company?

Six months ago the group announced it was throwing in the towel as a manufacturer.

Selling its existing business, it would raise cash through a rights issue to pay its debts and keep its bankers happy.

Then, as a cash shell, it would look to start again as a new business, hopefully in the e-commerce sector.

This news was well received in the city. The shares, having languished in single figures at around 7p to 8p after three years of mostly bad news, bounded up to 15p and then to 35p.

Since then, we have heard little and the shares drifted back to single figures.

The modern Creightons saga starts in 1996. A well-known company doctor John Carr took the near-bust company in hand.

In the process he bought 608,000 shares for himself and his family at 23p.

The company looked to be recovering. At this point Mr Carr decided to sell his entire shareholding to Barry Dale, a former chief executive of Littlewoods, for 41p. Dale became chairman.

After a failed attempt at an acquisition, losses continued and Bill Hamilton, a man who had experience of turning companies around, was installed as the new managing director.

This was last July. In December, Mr Dale left.

Mr Hamilton implemented a new plan but the cash position continued to worsen.

In February came the announcement of a new start. Mr Hamilton was to look at a management buy-out or a sale of the perfumeries business. A three-for-two rights issue at 5p each raised some £1.3 million.

Since then, silence.

I was prompted to phone the company when I saw the Investors Chronicle list of the fastest-rising shares.

Creightons had improved by 71 per cent to 15p, the biggest gainer in that week.

A-ha, I says to myself, movement at last.

But we now discover that the plans to sell the perfumes business have come to nought.

Mr Hamilton has stepped aside to launch a management buy-out, the Argus has been told.

This I find confusing.

If Mr Hamilton's attempt to turn the company around last year did not work, thus leading to the plan to relaunch the company in the e-commerce sector, why is he now persisting with the perfumes company?

The full explanation of Creightons' plans, which is expected when the firm releases its results in September, cannot come a minute too soon.

For the purposes of his occasional Sussex Portfolio column, Stewart Dalby owns a small number of Creightons shares.