Globe creditors may get ‘small dividend’
CREDITORS of the collapsed Warrington construction group Globe are owed around £4.9m, and may only collect a “small dividend”, according to administrators.
Lindsey Cooper and Diana Frangou of Baker Tilly were appointed to Globe Management Services and its parent company Aprilis Holdings in August.
A further group company, Globe Construction Management, entered creditors’ voluntary liquidation. The businesses, based at Trident Business Park, stopped trading with the loss of 60 jobs.
In a creditors’ report the administrators said the amount owed to unsecured creditors “may well be significantly higher… following the finalisation of certain counterclaims due from a number of the company debtors”.
The company’s accounts show it had book debts of £4.6m but a large amount relates to work in progress or jobs still subject to remedial work.
In the year to the end of May turnover declined 16% to £25m and profits halved to £133,467. But the administrators said there were “discrepancies” in the management accounts which they were analysing.
The report said the firm endured a period of difficult trading in 2013 and when it won a number of new projects, but some of these were difficult to deliver and costs increased. Also, some clients held money back over defects and in July Lloyds withdrew an invoice finance facility. One creditor filed a winding-up petition, which was settled, but the directors called in advisers who took steps to put the business into administration.
Globe’s recent projects included a 24,000 sq ft headquarters building for Golden Gates Housing Trust, the £1.65m refurbishment of the 127-year-old Oldham Coliseum theatre and a £1.7m extension at Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale.
Globe Management Services’s directors were Kevin Hargreaves, Ian Threadgold and Lee Mills. Aprilis Holdings is jointly owned by Mr Hargreaves, Mr Threadgold and Wendy Billington.
