Nearly 2,000 jobs to go as two of three remaining divisions shut down
The administrators of collapsed social housing contractor Rok have confirmed they are shutting down the company’s maintenance and improvements and Scottish construction divisions, with the loss of 1,800 jobs.
The move, which followed the loss of over 1,000 jobs in the last week, came after PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was unable to secure a deal to sell those divisions.
Rob Hunt, partner and joint administrator at PwC, said: “Regrettably, the redundancies made today were necessary as it became clear in the last 24 hours that we were not going to be able to find a purchaser for these parts of the group.
“Operations cannot continue and hence we have had to take steps to close both the maintenance and improvements division as well as the Scottish construction division. We have retained a small workforce to assist us in this process.”
PwC said the construction and social housing division in England “remains unaffected” as it continues to pursue a sale of this part of the business, which employs around 500 staff.
Earlier today Building reported all of Rok was likely to shut today after administrators failed to force a sale of the whole business. A decision on the fate of the remaining social housing business is expected to be announced in the next 24 hours. “We continue to maintain a dialogue with parties interested in the construction and social housing business in England,” Hunt said. “We expect to have further updates during this week.”
Today announcement follows the decision yesterday to make 87 staff redundant and put two of Rok’s Scottish businesses, Inverness-based Tulloch Transport and Rok Civil Engineering into administration.
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