Contractor filed notice of intention to appoint administrators on Wednesday
Buckingham Group Contracting has announced that it will stop trading and seek a buyer.
The builder, known for its work on major stadium jobs, filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators on Wednesday, giving it 10 days of protection from credits while it explores a sale.
In a statement issued yesterday, the company blamed “rapidly escalating contract losses and a sharp reduction in liquidity” for its circumstances.
“Very strong delivery and commercial performance across most of the business has been outweighed by deep losses and interim cash deficits incurred on the three major stadium and arena contracts, and a substantial earthworks contract in Coventry,” it continued.
In accounts filed at Companies House just before last Christmas, the firm admitted it had racked up a £14.2m loss on an unnamed stadium contract, thought to be Fulham’s Craven Cottage ground.
The problem job helped bring to an end five successive years of profit and dragged the firm’s 2021 results down to a pre-tax loss of £10.7m.
“This situation on these four long term major projects developed through a combination of unexpected impacts such as the extreme inflation linked to the Ukraine conflict and other challenges in the Sports and Leisure division.”
Efforts by the board over the past several months to bring in new investment came to nothing.
In addition to struggles on the Craven Cottage job, the business has experienced delays to its work on a new stand at Liverpool FC’s Anfield stadium and is involved with other arena projects in Birmingham and Northampton.
Clubs with ties to Buckingham have been quick to issue their own statements. Liverpool FC said yesterday that it would continue to work with the contractor on the planned phased opening of the extended Anfield Road stand.
Northampton Town FC’s chairman Kelvin Thomas explained that the early stage of the club’s planned stadium expansion meant it had “no financial risk or commitments” and would “monitor the situation with Buckingham and act accordingly”.
A statement from Birmingham City FC, which appointed Buckingham to carry out structural repair work on two lower stands at St Andrew’s Stadium, said it was holding “emergency meetings with a range of experts” to assess the impact of the contractor’s troubles.
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The club had previously aimed for the lower tier of the Tilton stand to be open by the end of September and for the Kop to be fully open by the end of November.
While best known for its stadia work, Buckingham also operates a £56m HS2 business and has built warehouses and distribution hubs for clients such as Prologis and Pannattoni.
Its most recent accounts warned that this logistics business would be hit by reduced margins because of deals that had been agreed before the war in Ukraine.
Since September 2021, the company had been 100% owned by a group employee ownership trust, a move which was accompanied by a celebratory £1,000 tax-free bonus paid to more than 530 eligible staff.
In its statement, Buckingham emphasised it is not currently in administration and stressed that its “main aim at present is to seek to protect jobs, and to preserve as much of the business as possible”.
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