MRMC Enters Liquidation Weeks After Nikon Exit, With Asset Sale Agreed but Not Yet Closed

Industry NewsMotion Control

by Nino LeitnerJune 15^th, 2026

Subscribe to News - Industry

Mark Roberts Motion Control, the British company behind the Oscar-winning Milo rig and the high-speed Bolt Cinebot, has entered liquidation just 57 days after Nikon announced it was selling the business. The Joint Liquidators have now agreed terms to sell MRMC’s entire business and assets to an unnamed purchaser who intends to keep operations running, though the deal remains subject to contract. Here is what we know, and what it means for anyone with an MRMC system, an open order, or a production that depends on one.

For a brand that has defined high-end motion control for decades, the speed of this collapse is the headline within the headline. Mark Roberts Motion Control Limited (MRMC) was placed into creditors’ voluntary liquidation on May 22, 2026, with Lee Manning and James Thompson of S&W appointed as Joint Liquidators. That came less than two months after Nikon confirmed it was divesting the company to a UK investment vehicle, a transition we covered when the Nikon sale to Blandford Capital was first announced. A 60-year-old, still-innovating manufacturer moving from a private-equity-style buyout into insolvency in under two months is the kind of timeline that raises questions, and so far none of the parties involved have publicly answered them.

What the liquidators have actually said

The notice circulating to customers, attributed to the Joint Liquidators, lays out the situation in careful language. It confirms the company was placed into liquidation on May 22, 2026, and states that the liquidators have “entered into agreed terms for a sale of the entirety of the Company’s business and assets, which remains subject to contract.” Completion, per the notice, was anticipated to take place before the middle of the following week, placing it around mid-June 2026.

The proposed purchaser, according to the same notice, has indicated its intention to continue the company’s operations, restore the brand, and provide support to the existing customer base and suppliers, including plans to honor certain warranties. Confirmed orders and rental commitments are set to continue as planned, and the liquidators have directed customer queries to their team at [email protected]. The key qualifiers here are “subject to contract,” “indicated its intention,” and “certain warranties,” all of which signal that nothing is yet finalized and not every commitment is guaranteed to carry over.

The buyer has not been named

As of this writing, the proposed purchaser has not been publicly identified. The notice refers only to “the proposed purchaser,” and no Companies House filing, trade report, or company statement has put a name to the buyer. Since the liquidators’ notice, unconfirmed industry reports have begun pointing to a possible acquirer, an Australian motion-control specialist, but no official confirmation of the buyer’s identity or of a completed sale had emerged at the time of writing, so this remains speculation for now. It is worth being precise about one point, because the recent ownership history makes confusion easy: the liquidation-sale buyer is not the same entity as Blandford Capital or MRMC Bidco Limited, which were tied to Nikon’s earlier share sale. Conflating the two would be a mistake, and naming the new buyer at this stage would be speculation.

This is a creditors’ voluntary liquidation, a UK insolvency process initiated by a company’s directors and approved by members and creditors, rather than a court-ordered winding up. It is not equivalent to US-style bankruptcy protection. With the company insolvent and no secured charges registered against it, customers who paid deposits for goods not yet delivered are likely to rank as unsecured creditors, a status that matters considerably if the sale does not complete as hoped.

A 60-year history, from rostrum tables to the Academy Award

MRMC was founded in 1966 by Australian-born engineer and inventor Mark Roberts, who began by servicing and upgrading animation rostrum tables before moving into bespoke control systems. The release of Star Wars in 1977 turned motion control from a niche technique into a global demand, and through the 1990s the company shifted from one-off builds to standardized platforms. The Milo motion-control crane arrived in 1994, and in 1999 MRMC received a Scientific and Technical Academy Award for the Milo and its Flair control software.

Nikon acquired the company in 2016, integrating MRMC’s robotics with its imaging technology and global sales channels. The original rationale paired motion control with Nikon’s mirrorless stills business, but that convergence never fully materialized at a production level, since MRMC’s systems have always sat closer to cinema, broadcast, and high-end commercial work. When Nikon acquired RED Digital Cinema in 2024, owning a separate robotic camera company arguably looked less central to the strategy, which is part of why the eventual divestment read as logical even if the aftermath did not.

The product line at stake

MRMC’s catalog spans some of the most recognizable hardware in the field. The Bolt high-speed Cinebot range, billed as the fastest camera robots in the world, includes the compact Bolt Jr+, the standard Bolt, and the long-reach Bolt X, with the flagship arm capable of moving at up to 12 m/s (about 39 ft/s) on track. The Academy Award-winning Milo and its successor Super Milo remain the reference rigs for macro, tabletop, CGI, and high-speed live-action work, with the Super Milo adding brushless motors, a 35 kg (77 lb) payload, and a 6.1 m (20 ft) maximum height.

More recently, the company pushed toward portability and lower price points with the Cinebot series, including the Cinebot Mini and the Cinebot Nano, the latter introduced at IBC 2025 from around £20,000 (roughly $27,000) as the company’s smallest and most affordable system to date. The lineup also includes the Bolt Mini Model Mover, the Flair software platform that controls hundreds of axes and integrates with tools like Maya and Unreal Engine, and a broad broadcast-robotics portfolio covering studio arms, robotic heads, rail systems, and subject-tracking software. According to MRMC, its technology has been used on more than 300 feature films, with a global footprint of over 500 motion-control rigs operating in 75 countries.

Where this leaves the market

Motion control is not a fading category; it has seen renewed interest driven by virtual production pipelines, LED volume work, and the demand for precise, repeatable camera movement in high-end commercial and episodic production. That is precisely why a disruption to the market’s de facto standard matters. MRMC’s difficulties also arrive as competition intensifies, both from established industrial-robot makers re-targeting film and broadcast and from newer, lower-cost entrants. On the more accessible end, Motorized Precision has been expanding its cinebot range, while broadcast specialists and KUKA-based service rigs continue to chip away at the high end.

For anyone with skin in the game, the practical guidance is to act on facts rather than intentions. If you have an open order, a deposit, or a confirmed rental, contact the liquidators’ team in writing and confirm your status, keeping documentation in case a creditor claim becomes necessary. If you own MRMC equipment, it is prudent to plan for a possible support gap by sourcing spare parts, backing up Flair licenses and configurations, and identifying independent service engineers. And if a current production depends on a Bolt, Milo, or Cinebot, lining up a contingency rig now removes a single point of failure. The signals that would genuinely change the outlook are concrete: a named buyer, confirmation the sale has completed, an explicit support-and-warranty commitment from the new owner, and MRMC resuming shipments and firmware updates.

A completed sale that keeps MRMC’s engineering, support, and roadmap intact would be the best outcome for the whole motion-control community, but until the deal closes and a buyer is named, continuity remains conditional rather than guaranteed. Do you rely on MRMC gear in your work, and what would you want to hear from a new owner before trusting the brand again? Don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below!