Social housing specialist Connaught has bought Botes Maintenance, which is in administration, for £3.25m.

Botes Maintenance and Botes Construction are both part of Botes Building, which is itself owned by GGS Holdings. Botes Building and HN Edwards, which is also owned by GGS, went into administration last week.

The Connaught deal follows the provisional sale of Botes Maintenance to a shell company backed by shareholder Epic Reconstruction last week. However, administrator Kroll was able to resell the division to Connaught under the Insolvency Act, which allowed it to accept a higher offer if received within a certain time.

The provisional sale enabled administrators to save 200 jobs, all of which will be transferred to Connaught.

Peter Savill, Kroll’s administrator, said: “Without a provisional sale at the outset of the administration, closure of the business would have been necessary.”

The administrator is still reviewing options for Botes Construction. It is also in talks with interested parties regarding the potential sale of HN Edwards, which has a turnover of about £33m. HN Edwards entered administration as a result of unprofitable contracts, which led to cash flow difficulties.

The last available results for Botes Building show that Botes Construction and Botes Maintenance suffered a loss of about £1.6m on turnover of £84m.