In a sudden move, engineering consultant Clarkebond has ceased trading and fallen into administration after 77 years
The liquidation has been chalked up to issues with management practices and clashing with staff.
Just three months prior, in September, the firm was acquired by the Independent Design House Group (IDHG).
Clarkebond was a respected player in the engineering industry
The acquisition of Clarkebond was portrayed by IDHG as a step intended to boost the company, with the deal bringing an extra 90 employees into the fold, nearly tripling the existing staff from around 50 to 140.
The staff were spread in offices across the British Isles, with offices in London, Maidstone, Bristol, Exeter, Darlington, and Ireland as well as a European office in Poland.
The deal also intended to boost annual turnover to over £10m and turn IDHG into a multidisciplinary engineering consultancy for services spread from concept to construction.
According to insiders, however, the work and management culture under IDHG did not match the established Clarkebond culture, eventually leading to a number of key staff leaving the firm. Redundancies followed, impacting contracts and contract performance and lead to undelivered project targets.
The Clarkebond liquidation came to reality in the middle of December.
A fair financial position precedes the Clarkebond liquidation
The financial records, according to Companies House, show that Clarkebond had shareholders funds worth £1.5m, with cash reserves of £320,000 at the end of the financial year 2023. In spite of this, integration with IDHG proved so unsustainable as to be untenable.
One insider said: “The new management style and practices didn’t go down well with everyone and some talented staff left.
“They also started letting staff go and making redundancies claiming that wouldn’t affect performance but it obviously did and we weren’t able to properly service some contracts.
“Clarkebond has been in business 77 years but managed to survive only three months under IDHG.”
Administration trends in the construction industy
In September 2024, the same month that Clarkebond was acquired, construction giant ISG fell into administration and sent shockwaves throughout the industry. The collapse affected the 33 contracts and 57 projects that ISG had, as well as pulling under other contractors that had deals with ISG, such as Seventynine, a lighting contractor, who were short £2m following the collapse.
The concerning trend of collapsing firms reaches back earlier in the year, as J S Crawford fell into liquidation in February 2024, making all 23 staff members redundant after 50 years of trading. The reasons for the collapse were established as more industry-wide reasons, including cost inflation, tight margins, and a shortage of skills and labour.
