Hard Acre Building Limited (06079616): administration
- Status
- Administration ended
- Administration began
- 2020-02-06
- Administrators
- Simon Robert Haskew, Paul David Wood
- Administrators' firm
- Begbies Traynor
- Incorporated
- 2007-02-02
- Location
- Bristol
- Industry
- 41100 Development of building projects
Why it went into administration
- Cash flow / liquidity pressure
- Creditor pressure / legal action
From the administrators' statement
The Company was incorporated on 2 February 2007 to operate as an Owners Agent overseeing residential developments. In 2015 the decision was made to move into the role of main contractor for the Special Purpose Vehicles ("SPVs”) companies being formed to acquire the sites identified by the finding arm.
In May 2019 a meeting was held with key shareholders and investors and an agreement was made to change the structure of the group, as it was perceived that if there was a problem with the building side then it would impact on the SPVs and the rest of the group. This meeting was called because the group was experiencing cash flow problems where lenders to the SPVs were either delaying payments or reducing the agreed sums to be paid.
A holding company was formed, however in August 2019 the Directors were introduced to an individual who stated he could solve the problems and raise some funding to allow the company to accelerate the building work to enable them to and get to milestones earlier and draw down funds. This should have taken no more than 8 weeks in which there were various meetings and many promises made. By December 2019 both directors felt they had been misled by the broker and went back to talking to current investors and shareholders about a restructure.
Administrators' statement of proposals (2020-04-08) · Companies House register