Following months of speculation about the company’s financial future, six UK subsidiaries of the £2.2 billion contracting giant, including its main ISG Construction arm, lodged court applications yesterday afternoon (19 September).
In an email sent to staff last night confirming the administration, ISG chief executive Zoe Price confirmed that offices would be closed, sites would not open and that all subcontractors would be stood down.
Among the schemes on ISG’s books are the £32.7 million restoration and redevelopment of Birmingham’s Moseley Road Baths, overseen by Donald Insall Associates; the £70 million Regents Quarter offices-to-labs project at King’s Cross by Piercy&Company; and the £44 million conversion of Coventry’s former IKEA store into an arts and culture centre by Buttress.
The six companies that have applied for administration are: ISG Construction Ltd, ISG Engineering Services Ltd, ISG Jackson Ltd ISG Retail Limited, ISG UK Retail Ltd and ISG Central Services Ltd.
According to the most recent filed accounts for ISG Construction covering the year ending 31 December 2022, the company had an income of £545 million and made a profit of £3.2 million. ISG Retail had posted a turnover of £551 million and a profit of £28.2 million over the same period.
In July, the AJ’s sister title Construction News reported that the group was very near to being sold by its owner, Texas-based Cathexis Holdings.
But rumours about the company struggling to pay its subcontractors have circulated for months. In November last year, ISG was forced to deny what it called ‘wholly inaccurate’ rumours about its financial health, following delays to two of its most high-profile jobs: Britishvolt’s £3 billion gigafactory and the £700 million Sunset Waltham Cross film studio complex.
Earlier this week, one of its suppliers, Alandale Logistics, filed its own winding-up petition against ISG Engineering Services Ltd.
ISG and the architects on the schemes mentioned above have all been contacted for comment.