Contractor collapses after being defeated by football stadium contracts

Buckingham Group, the contractor working on football stadia including Northampton Town, Birmingham City, and Liverpool, has ceased trading.

It had initially filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators before stopping work on its sites around the country.

It has now updated markets and customers, saying it has ceased trading with immediate effect.

Buckingham Group has worked on schemes across the Midlands, including a logistics scheme in Daventry, the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre £26.9m logistics scheme in Daventry, and Panattoni’s warehouse in Tamworth.

In a statement it said: “It is with immeasurable regret that the Buckingham board has to announce that rapidly escalating contract losses and a sharp reduction in liquidity, together mean the company is unable to continue trading at this current time.

“We know that this will come as a shock to all our valued stakeholders.”

In an explanation of its position it said: “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.

“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.

“Over several months and right up to this week, the board has worked with specialist advisors to seek to bring substantial new investment into the business that would have enabled the company to continue trading as a going concern without interruption. However, this initiative has ultimately met without success.”

The statement added: “As a result of the recent challenges, the board has filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators to protect the business whilst we explore a sale of all, or part, of the business in a very short period (days/weeks).

“We will be liaising with clients and interested parties to optimise any solution and secure the best outcome for creditors.

“We emphasise the company is currently not in administration. Our main aim at present is to seek to protect jobs, and to preserve as much of the business as possible.”