Wembley roofing firm calls in administrator

The management of the £15m-turnover firm is understood to be considering a buyout of the company, which went into administration at the end of January. As well as Wembley, the firm has worked on large PFI contracts, including the £90m Churchill Hospital for Oxford Radcliffe, and a £2.5m contract on the Malmaison hotel in Liverpool. It is understood that it was working on the Broadmead shopping centre in Bristol before it went into administration.

Administrator Begbies Traynor said the cash flow problems were the result of delays in resolving “sizeable claims” on projects including Wembley and the Malmaison hotel. It said about £1.5m was tied up in the claims.

Weatherwise UK designed and installed the roof at Wembley stadium. This took a year longer than expected and meant the company had to direct resources away from its other schemes.

Multiplex revised the deal to take account of the delays and Weatherwise UK made a profit on the contract, but because of the impact on other projects it posted a loss of £157,000 on a turnover of £14.5m for 2006.

Weatherwise UK is the latest in a host of Wembley
contractors to go into administration

Weatherwise UK is the latest Wembley subcontractor to go into administration. Others include seating and fit-out firm Pel Group in July 2006 and plumbing and pipework firm SGD Engineering Services December 2005.

Cladding firms have struggled in the past year. Glass-cladding firm Space Decks was bought out of administration in August 2007 and cladding specialist Pluswall Facades went into voluntary liquidation in January 2007.

Weatherwise Export and Weatherwise Special Projects have not gone in administration.