Most of the workforce at Nottingham-based building contractor J Tomlinson are being made redundant after the £100 million-plus turnover business went into administration. The 70-year-old business, which employed more than 400 people, had failed to bring in fresh funding after being hit by the effects of “hyper-inflation”.
Joint administrators Raj Mittal and Nathan Jones of specialist business advisory firm FRP were appointed today (10 July 2023) and said they had stopped the business trading while they considered their options.
Over the decades J Tomlinson had built a strong reputation in construction, facilities management, refurbishment and property maintenance. It worked in areas such as social housing, emergency services, local government, education, health and social care, commercial and residential. From its headquarters in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, it also worked on several big local government contracts.
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In a statement the administrators said: “Following Covid, the business has suffered from the prevailing headwinds seen across the construction sector, including severe inflationary pressure on costs.
“Upon appointment, the joint administrators ceased trading the business and regrettably will be making the majority of staff redundant.
“The remaining staff will be retained to assist the administrators in their duties as they explore options for the business.”
Joint administrator Raj Mittal said: “Despite its scale and the success achieved across a number of its divisions, the severe impact of Covid and recent inflationary pressures meant that J Tomlinson was not in a financial position to continue trading and so we have had to make the difficult decision to cease operations.
“We’re now assessing options on next steps and have started our engagement with clients and creditors regarding ongoing projects and liabilities. We are providing support for affected staff in making applications to the Redundancy Payments Service.”
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Latest accounts to September 30, 2021, showed J Tomlinson had a turnover of £106 million (up from £95 million) and made a pre-tax loss of £657,000, which was down on the previous year.
As well as its Nottingham head office, it has a West Midlands base in Sutton Coldfield and offices in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Wigan, Derby, Sheffield, Doncaster, Wakefield and Bullwell.
In a statement earlier today chief executive Mark Davis said: “JTL (J Tomlinson Ltd) have a number of divisions across facilities management, regeneration, refurbishment, engineering services, and care. It is the latter division which has been battling long-term contracts with hyper-inflation, schemes priced pre-Covid which ultimately has impaired the group’s cash-flow.
“We as a board have worked tirelessly to attract additional overall finance into the group to invest for the future. Sadly today, we have to announce we have been unsuccessful in this regard.
“Since Covid impacted the world and the local business community, we have worked tremendously hard to build the JTL brand across our chosen sectors with great success which is testament to all our people.
“We have many very long-service colleagues who have spent a good portion of their lives supporting our business, along with their family and friends, we hoped we would end their journey with a bright future for the next generation, sadly we have run out of time.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the JTL family for their proactive attitude to our customers, to each other and the supply chain who have supported us over a long period of trading and especially post-Covid and the impact this outcome will have on them, and their business and their employees.”