The administrators of a national roofing contractor have instructed CAPA to conduct audits on more than 20 sites the business traded from, after they secured an 11th hour rescue of parts of the company via a sale process.
As administrators of Avonside Services Group - a business that originally formed in 1987 and employed around 350 staff - Begbies Traynor was able to secure the future of nine Avonside Roofing branches, preserving 79 jobs via an administration sale to an industry buyer.
After the last-minute rescue process, Begbies Traynor has now instructed CAPA to conduct rates audits on 23 sites that Avonside occupied.
The Avonside group has provided specialist roofing, energy and plumbing services to the UK’s housebuilding industry across its three divisions, for well over 30 years.
Begbies Traynor was called in to assist the company as Avonside experienced a period of disrupted trading during the pandemic which, alongside margin squeeze, the impact of underperforming divisions and financial reporting issues, resulted in a requirement for extended working capital facilities.
Despite extensive efforts among the management team, shareholders and advisors, the group was unable during the summer to secure the necessary funding from existing stakeholders, or third parties, to kickstart a turnaround process.
Ultimately, this led to insolvency, with Kirstie Provan and Gary Shankland of Begbies Traynor formally appointed as joint administrators to Avonside Group Services, along with a number of trading subsidiaries including Avonside Roofing Ltd, in September.
The corporate restructuring experts then worked on an accelerated sale of some of the contractor’s branches.
Begbies Traynor has since instructed CAPA, meaning that CAPA’s Audit team will conduct a forensic investigation of business rates paid out at the 23 sites, using bespoke software to identify instances of overpayments in the data.
Any overspend will be recovered on a no-win, no-fee basis.
