Bardsley in administration

All 200 employees have lost their jobs… just days before Christmas

Steven Muncaster and Stephen Clancy, both of Duff & Phelps, were appointed joint administrator on Friday 20th December 2019.

Bardsley Group Ltd is a privately owned regional contractor, headed by Roly Bardsley, with offices in Manchester and Leeds. It had been trading for more than 55 years. Its turnover had grown in recent years from £51m in 2016 to £80m this year.

Its construction markets included schools, hotels & leisure facilities, offices & shops and residential development. Its residential team had built more than 2,500 properties in the last five years.

The administrators said that Bardsley had experienced “challenging market conditions including the timely delivery of a number of recent projects, resource issues within the sector, contractual disputes with private clients together with new work opportunities being delayed as a result of the uncertainty in the economic and political environment”.

Joint administrator Steven Muncaster said: “We were formally engaged in November 2019 to advise the group on its current financial position and to facilitate an accelerated merger and acquisition process or seek immediate investment to tide the group over into 2020 when a number of new orders are expected to come online. Despite a number of expressions of interest no acceptable formal offers have been made for the group, leaving the directors with no option but to appoint administrators.”

He added: “The companies normally shut down over the Christmas period and as such this timing will enable us to undertake a further review of the financial position of the group while marketing the business and assets for sale. We will be working solidly over the holiday period to facilitate this.”

 The administrators are looking at a sale of the business and assets of the companies as a going concern in the first instance. If this does not prove possible, then they will look to realise all known assets of the group for the benefit of its creditors, they said.

Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk