No hope for HE Simm creditors

An administrator’s report on the collapsed M&E engineering firm revealed that more than £21m was owed when the Liverpool business entered administration last September.

HE Simm & Son was placed into administration with Forvis Mazars in September, with an initial report in October outlining £18m owed to creditors.

At that time, Place reported that having returned to growth after the blow of Covid, HE Simm had been heavily impacted by rising costs and supply chain disruption caused by the Ukraine war, creating “one of the most challenging trading environments in the company’s history”.

As the company struggled on, six projects in London lost a combined £20m, prompting a cash injection from directors early in 2025, and a strategic decision to withdraw from London. A key client then went bust in June.

Forvis Mazars has now issued a further update, with little in the way of sunshine. Filed on Companies House, the report sets out how unsecured liabilities stand at close to £21.4m. This breaks down as £18.8m owed to trade and expense creditors, £2.3m to employee claims, £240,000 to HMRC and around £35,000 to directors; claims.

Claims received to date, said FM stand at just shy of £18m, from 130 creditors. Summing up, joint administrator Patrick Lannagan said that the work of tidying up the firm’s affairs will take it beyond the initial 12-month administration period, nut “it is unlikely there will be sufficient realisations to enable a dividend to unsecured creditors”.

Surveyor JPS has now sold off some company equipment and vehicles. With selling the company as a going concern not an option. FM started a process of seeking bidders for customer contacts and tangible assets, under the proviso non-disclosure agreements were signed.

Twenty eight expressions of interest were received, with 20 parties being granted access to the “data room” providing further information. Only two parties remained interested, and the only one of those interested in the contracts then withdrew that interest. Both those parties have now been contacted over their interest in the assets.

Once the company’s loose ends are tied up, Lannagan proposes in the report that the administrator seeks to exit via the dissolution route.