Verry collapse hits 1,000 firms and costs Doyle £1.9m

03 July 2009

Concrete contractor John Doyle was left £1.9m out of pocket by the collapse of Verry Construction in May.

The firm is one of an estimated 1,000 companies that are owed a total of £19m, including many architects and consultants.

According to a 42-page report by administrator BDO Stoy Hayward, Make Architects is owed £53,200, Wilkinson Eyre £60,592 and Schmidt Hammer Lassen, the designer of the City of Westminster college, is owed £198,118.

Doyle’s losses stemmed from its work on the £67.7m college. This has since been re-started by McLaren Construction, which last month paid £810,000 for an undisclosed number of Verry’s contracts.

Doyle chairman Stef Stefanou said: “It’s regrettable when companies go under but it’s no surprise this has happened as a result of the credit crunch. In terms of the Westminster job we reached an agreement with the new main contractor McLaren to carry out work so the programme will not be delayed.”

According to the report from BDO, creditors are unlikely to recover any of their money. It said: “Based on the information available, there will be insufficient property to enable a dividend to be paid to unsecured creditors.”

Consultants owed money by Verry include Ramboll Group (£89,242), Arup (£67,465), Buro Happold (£60,192), Mouchel (£93,478), Faber Maunsell (£18,341) and Cyril Sweett (£2,568).

Other contractors to be hit include M&E firm Briggs & Forrester (£447,355), Hague Construction (£291,584), Barhale Construction (£112,791), Travis Perkins (£52,219), Telford Homes (£16,098) and Kier Plant (£11,885).

The report also shows that Leadbitter paid £100,000 to take over Verry’s Oaklands college project in St Albans in May. Former Verry chairman John Gibson is now working for Leadbitter in a senior consultancy role.

Last week Building revealed that Verry paid the wages of St Albans City football club, a company owned by failed parent William Verry Holdings.

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