Jobs go as administrator of £400m London high-rise builder brings in specialists to sift through contracts

Administrators for London high-rise builder Henry Construction Projects have brought in specialist help as they confirmed most of the stricken firm’s 40 staff have lost their jobs.

The £400m turnover firm sank into administration 11 days ago after weeks of speculation about the health of the contractor.

In an update, FRP Advisory said the “joint administrators have been assessing the position of the business with support from sector professional advisors”.

It added: “Gateley Vinden, the property and construction consultancy, is supporting the joint administrators as they contact developers across sites in progress along with Hilco Valuation Services, the asset valuation, advisory and sales practice of Hilco Global, which is assisting with the asset recovery and disposal strategy.”

Joint administrator David Hudson said: “Henry Construction was a significant player of scale in the UK market. Unfortunately, given its financial position, it was not able to continue trading and so all operations have ceased. Regrettably, the majority of staff have been made redundant and we are supporting them in making the appropriate claims to the Redundancy Payments Office.

“We continue our work to gather information about the assets and liabilities of the business and understand the events leading up to the insolvency. As part of that process, we are engaging with developers regarding the status of each site.”

In its last set of accounts, Henry Construction Projects, which specialised in residential and mixed-use jobs, posted an improved turnover of £402m in the year to June 2021.

The figure was up 7% on the previous 12 months with pre-tax profit during the period up 8% to £14m.