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Administration · 28 February 2024

Wooldridge Contractors

Main contractor · Bagshot · South East England

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What happened

WOOLDRIDGE CONTRACTORS LIMITED (company number 01798995), incorporated in 1984, entered administration on 28 February 2024. Its status at Companies House is now: liquidation.

Why it failed

Labour and material cost rises hit its fixed lump sum contracts, clients refused mid-contract increases and one withheld about 2.1 million pounds, and HMRC threatened a winding-up petition.

  • Main reason: Cost inflation
  • Losses on contracts
  • Clients not paying or failing
  • HMRC debts
  • Cash flow
  • Covid-19

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: FIRM FOUNDATIONS LIMITED.

Timeline

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

  1. 31 January 2022

    Last accounts filed were made up to this date

    2 years later

  2. 28 February 2024

    Administration started

    2 years later

  3. 11 February 2026

    Administration ended

  4. 11 February 2026

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

AccountsPayment reportInsolvency

Before it failed

Key figures

Staff, year to Jan 2022
70
Accounts at Companies House
Net assets, year to Jan 2022
£11.0m
Accounts at Companies House
Owed to unsecured creditors (estimated), as at 28 February 2024
£7.4m
of which trade creditors £4.2m. HMRC owed £623k. staff owed £836k. Expected return to unsecured creditors: none expected
Administrators' proposals (includes £2.4m owed to group companies)

The last accounts filed were full accounts made up to 31 January 2022, 25 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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