McMullen Facades follows Lakesmere into administration

Administrators have been appointed at McMullen Facades, part of the Lakesmere Group which collapsed earlier this month.

McMullen, which is a subsidiary of Lakesmere, initially continued to trade when its parent company entered administration, but administrators from Deloitte have now been called in.

Rachel Hawes and Peter Allen of Deloitte were appointed on 20 November.

The company employs 270 people at offices and a factory in Northern Ireland and in Winchester. Despite the appointment of administrators, no redundancies have been made.

The cladding company picked up major contracts as recently as October, having been named as a subcontractor to Laing O’Rourke on the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s new hospital in Liverpool last month.

In its most recent results, covering the year to 31 January 2016, the company posted a turnover of £37.3m and a pre-tax profit of £1m.

Allen said: “McMullen is a profitable business that unfortunately has been affected by cash flow issues in the wider Lakesmere group. McMullen therefore has continued to trade outside of insolvency whilst a buyer was sought.

“The business will continue to trade whilst we seek to sell it as a going concern and there are ongoing discussions with a number of interested parties.”

McMullen’s parent company Lakesmere entered administration on 3 November following financial difficulties caused by “a number of unprofitable contracts”. The group, which had its North West office in Altrincham, made 109 people redundant.