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Thu March 28 2024

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Southdale falls but Kier steps in

1 May 15 Kier has rescued part of the business of northern construction firm Southdale from its administrators.

Halifax-based Southdale went into administration on 29th April as a result of severe cash flow problems stemming from the identification of a significant number of loss making contracts. 

Southdale is a £100m-a-year contractor specialising in affordable new homes and public building works such as care accommodation and community centres. It works primarily with local authorities across the north of England.

Joint administrators Peter Holder, Lee Causer and Anne O’Keefe of business advisory firm AlixPartners Services UK quickly sold certain parts of the business and assets to Kier Living. As part of this sale, Kier is seeking the potential novation of certain contracts and is taking on 128 Southdale employees. However, a further 87 have been made redundant.

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Kier said that the deal represented significant regional growth for its Kier Living division and increases employee numbers to more than 520.

Kier Living executive director John Anderson said: “Today represents an important milestone for Kier Living as we expand our presence in the north of England in order to deliver our growth plans, as set out in Kier’s strategy Vision 2020. Nationally Kier Living plans to increase output from around 1,500 units per annum currently, to around 4,000 units by 2020.

“Not only will we be able to use the combined capability and expertise of the two teams to deliver existing developments, we will also be able to expand our offering to a wider range of clients, and deliver projects of an increased scale. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Southdale employees to Kier and look forward to continuing our journey of growth with them.” 

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