Administrators look to transfer contracts to other firms after latest collapse in offsite market

All staff at Mid Group have been told they no longer have a job after the offsite specialist construction firm entered administration last Thursday.

The £55m-turnover contractor and consultant is set to be dissolved and the administrators are looking at whether some of its contracts can be transferred to other firms, Housing Today understands.

Herschel Street

Mid Group’s 238-home Aspire scheme in Slough for Click Properties

The decision has already been taken to liquidate subsidiary company Mid Group Services as this is the company that has contracts with its 37 employees, who were informed of their redundancies by email yesterday. Parent company Mid Group Holdings is also likely to be liquidated.

Jason Elliott and Craig Johns of accountancy firm Cowgills have been appointed as administrators.

The collapse follows rapid growth for Mid Group, which was only formed in 2014.

In its most recently filed accounts for the 2020 financial year, Mid Group made a pre-tax loss of £2.5m on turnover of £55.7m.

The group’s residential projects include its 238-home Aspire scheme in Slough for housebuilder Click Properties and a 152-home scheme in Bath Road, Bristol.

See also>> Growing pains or cause for concern? What recent financial failures mean for the modular market

Former Laing O’Rourke project director Steven Hearn, who joined the firm as founding director, resigned as a director of Mid Group on 1 July.

Mid Group had described itself as one of the UK’s “fastest-growing construction companies” and as a “leading offsite construction, consultancy and development businesses.”

Mid Group is the latest in a line of companies in the offsite market to get into financial difficulties.

Earlier this week housebuilder Countryside announced it is to shut its brand-new modular housing factory at Bardon, Leicestershire as part of a plan to reduce losses identified earlier this year in its manufacturing business.

House by Urban Splash, a joint venture set up by Urban Splash, Japanese modular giant Sekisui House and Homes England, collapsed earlier this year as did Caledonian Modular, before eventually being taken over by concrete frame firm JRL.

 

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