Wellington, July 20 NZPA - A second distribution has been paid to workers made redundant from collapsed textile manufacturer Lane Walker Rudkin.

The payment takes the amount they have received to 55c per dollar of total employee preferential entitlements.

LWR was put into receivership in late April, with 186 workers made redundant in mid-May.

Today receivers Stephen Tubbs and Brian Mayo-Smith said the latest payments to staff had been made at the earliest opportunity based on accumulation of cash from day-to-day trading.

At the time the redundancies were made, LWR did not have cash reserves available to meet any significant proportion of the outstanding entitlements.

The payments confirmed today reflected a strong focus on addressing the situation as quickly as possible, the receivers said.

"We recognise that the impact of the receivership has been very hard for the staff made redundant, and we can only thank them for the patience they have shown in these circumstances.

"We would also like to recognise the efforts of the retained staff of the group, who have worked extremely hard in a difficult situation to produce the cash required to make the payments achieved to date," Mr Tubbs and Mr Mayo-Smith said.

Further payments would be made as soon as the cash position of the group allowed.

By law, employees' preferential entitlements are made up of arrears of wages, holiday pay and redundancy entitlements up to a gross limit of $16,420 per employee. Any entitlements above that are unsecured claims against the group.

A first round of payments, equivalent to 10c in the dollar, were made in the form of scheduled wages at the time the receivers were appointed in late April.