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Administration · 9 May 2016

Commercial Marine & Piling

Main contractor · Poole · South West England

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What happened

COMMERCIAL MARINE & PILING LIMITED (company number 02620547), incorporated in 1991, entered administration on 9 May 2016. Its status at Companies House is now: liquidation.

Why it failed

A subcontractor underperforming on one contract caused a £2.5m loss in 2014; refinancing and investor searches failed, and a missed VAT payment plan led to an HMRC winding-up petition.

  • Main reason: Losses on contracts
  • Cash flow
  • Funding withdrawn
  • Sale or investment failed
  • HMRC debts
  • Clients not paying or failing

Our summary of the reasons given in the administrators' proposals. These record the administrators' and directors' account of what happened.

An administrator, a licensed insolvency practitioner, takes control of the company to try to rescue it, sell the business or get a better result for creditors than a liquidation.

Previously known as: COMMERCIAL UNDERWATER CONTRACTORS LIMITED.

Timeline

The last accounts and payment report before the failure, then what happened, with the time between each.

  1. 31 December 2013

    Last accounts filed were made up to this date

    2 years later

  2. 9 May 2016

    Administration started

    23 months later

  3. 12 April 2018

    Administration ended

  4. 12 April 2018

    Creditors' voluntary liquidation started (shareholders resolved to wind up)

AccountsPayment reportInsolvency

Before it failed

Key figures

Turnover in its last accounts, year to Dec 2013
£14.4m
Accounts at Companies House
Profit before tax, year to Dec 2013
£473k
Accounts at Companies House
Staff, year to Dec 2013
41
Accounts at Companies House
Net assets, year to Dec 2013
£1.4m
Accounts at Companies House
Owed to unsecured creditors (estimated), as at 12 May 2016
£6.7m
of which trade creditors £4.1m. HMRC owed £1.3m. a further £287k owed to its lenders. Expected return to unsecured creditors: expected, amount not yet known
Administrators' proposals

The last accounts filed were medium-sized company accounts made up to 31 December 2013, 28 months before it went into administration. Private companies have nine months after their year end to file, so a gap of more than 21 months usually means the next accounts were overdue, one of the warning signs worth checking for.

The full filing history, including any late filings, charges and director changes, is on Companies House.

Lessons learned report

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In the news

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