RSM to oversee All Saints Construction liquidation

Following a winding up order, North East contractor All Saints Construction is set to be liquidated. The process will be undertaken by professionals from RSM UK.

The construction sector is often the first part of the economy to be acutely impacted by a downturn. In recent months, this has seen a spate of consulting firms fall into insolvency proceedings. The latest of these is All Saints Construction – a County Durham based company, which was formerly a subsidiary of High Street Group.

High Street Group was a North East developer, best known for its work on Newcastle’s Hadrian’s Tower. But in 2020, the firm fell into administration, owing more than £200 million to its creditors – shortly after PwC resigned as its auditor, saying management had failed to provide sufficient evidence for a reliable audit. High Street Group is subsequently itself in a liquidation process expected to take five to six years.

Now, All Saints may face a similar fate. The developer, had focused on accommodation projects, including build-to-rent apartments and hotels. However, a long list of financial issues in recent years eventually saw a winding up order issued by the UK’s High Court. As a result, James Dowers and Mark Wilson from RSM UK were appointed joint administrators of All Saints Construction.

Reports in the UK press note that the company last submitted its accounts for the year ending 31 December 2018. The accounts showed that the company made a pre-tax profit of £96,385, down slightly on the year before, and revenue of just over £16 million. However, one indicator of how things may have deteriorated since comes from June 2022, when All Saints was ordered to pay £42,600 to a former employee – after a tribunal found the worker in question was constructively dismissed, and had not been give adequate notice or redundancy pay.

All Saints is the latest in a string of North East contractors collapsing. This included Tolent, Metnor and Norstead over February 2023 alone. The sector has suffered the knock-on effects of a slowing housing market, with mortgages becoming more expensive for home buyers resulting in fewer house sales. At the same time, construction firms continue to face higher inflation, pushing up the cost of raw materials and transportation, and the looming threat of a recession.