Fifty jobs lost as office fit-out company ceases trading

Fifty jobs have been lost after an office fit out company ceased trading.

Administrators were called in at Paramount D&B which has offices across the South West.

The office fit-out and interior specialist had a turnover of just under £30m and employed more than 50 staff.

The company posted a notice on its website confirming the bad news.

The notice said: “Susan Clay and Huw Powell were appointed joint administrators of the company on 15 July 2024 and the company has ceased trading.”

“A moratorium has been placed over the companies as a result of our appointment. This means that no creditor can take legal action against the companies except with leave of the court.

“A licensed insolvency practitioner will be appointed to handle the process. It will be their role to identify and realise all of the company’s assets with a view to making distributions to creditors, where available.

Just under 50 employees have been made redundant, with eight members of staff being retained to assist with the administration process.

Established in 1989 the  business went through a management buy-out in 2018, led by the current director, Richard Jones.

Subsequent transactions saw the company enter an employee ownership trust arrangement in 2021, before a further MBO took place in 2023 reducing Mr Jones’ shareholding to four per cent.

Post-pandemic, the company expanded into the construction sector after concerns about how the office market would be affected in the longer term.  Despite winning a number a high-profile construction projects, the company faced challenges to deliver these projects profitably and ran into severe cash flow issues.

Susan Clay, joint administrator and director at Begbies Traynor in South Wales, said: “This situation underlines the challenges being faced in the construction sector with inflationary pressures contributing to trading losses and ultimately leading to the failure of an established and successful business.

“Pre-pandemic, the group was highly profitable and by June 2022 it had re-built to net assets in excess of £1m. It continued to win high profile projects and win awards and plaudits for its work. However, losses on construction projects caused a severe cash-flow crisis that it could not recover from.

“It is hugely disappointing to see Paramount cease trading in these circumstances and highly regrettable that efforts to secure its future were unsuccessful. We are aware of the negative impact that this will have on the supply chain and hope that suppliers and sub-contractors will be able to work with Paramount’s customers to find the best possible solutions to complete existing projects.

“From our interactions with staff, it is clear that they remained loyal to and were proud to work for the business. Employees are of course devastated by today’s news, and I sincerely hope that their track record of delivering successful projects will stand them in good stead to gain new employment quickly.”

Richard Jones, chief executive of Paramount said: “This is a truly devastating day for the business that I was first employed by 16 years ago. All options to find a solution to keep the business trading have been explored and the directors are devastated to be left with no choice but to cease trading. We did everything possible to avoid closure, but the losses incurred on construction projects were simply too large to turn things around.

“Our thoughts are with our colleagues who have lost their jobs, many of whom have given long service to make Paramount a success. We would also like to thank our loyal clients and suppliers who supported us over the years and are sorry to let them down.”