A boss at collapsed South West construction giant Midas Group Plc was paid more than half a million pounds while the company was making huge losses, it has emerged.
Accounts for the stricken firm, which is now in administration with the loss of 303 jobs, show the highest paid director trousered £504,000 in the 18 months to the end of October 2020. This sum does not include pension contributions so it is likely the director benefited further. The payment was made in the same 18 months when the company made an after-tax loss of more than £2m.
The highest paid director also pocketed £443,000 in 2019, the group’s annual report and financial statements reveal. In total, directors were paid £1,869,000 during the 18 months to the end of October 2020, with £53,000 paid in pension contributions.
At the time the directors were chairman Steve Hindley, chief executive Alan Hope, Mike Hocking, and chief commercial officer Scott Poulter, plus finance director Duncan Rogerson, who resigned in July 2019 and was replaced by Michael Ready.
Mr Ready left the company in March 2021, to move to Australia, and was replaced by Peter Skoulding. Mr Poulter left the company on December 21, 2021, the same day another former finance director, Mr Hocking, also left.
Mr Hocking had been a key figure at Midas since 1998 when he and Mr Hindley, now aged 72, purchased the company in a management buy-in.
Mr Hindley, who led that buy-in, was chairman of the Midas Group up until its administration and is among the most high-profile business figures in the South West.
He is a chartered civil engineer, a fellow of both the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Chartered Institute of Building and a member of RICS.
He was awarded the CBE in the 2006 New Years Honours List for services to the construction industry and appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Devon in 2009.
Mr Hindley graduated from Salford University in 1971, but also received an honorary doctorate of engineering from the University of Exeter in 2011 and an honorary doctorate in business from the University of Plymouth in 2015.
He is the chairman of The Great South West, the “powerhouse” brand which promotes the local enterprise partnership (LEP) areas of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Heart of the South West and Dorset.
The organisation, led by an alliance of business leaders, LEPs, universities, colleges and local government, aims to deliver £45bn of economic benefit and become the leading region for the green and blue economy.
Mr Hindley, who has blamed the Covid pandemic for Midas’ collapse, is also a member of and former chairman of the CBI Construction Council and the SW Regional Council.
In 2019, he stepped down as chair of the Heart of the South West LEP, after holding the position since November 2013.
Mr Hindley, an aficionado of classic cars, has served as a trustee and chairman for the Devon Community Foundation, a trustee of Children’s Hospice South West and was formally on the board of governors at the City of Bristol College.
Midas Group’s chief executive Alan Hope was credited on the firm’s website, before it was shut down by administrators, as having “led Midas ' growth to a £250m-plus pa revenue business” since joining in 2004.
The company said he had driven the group's restructuring into five “customer facing companies” - Midas Construction Ltd, Midas Retail Ltd, Mi-Space (UK) Ltd, Mi-Space Property Services Ltd, Midas Commercial Developments Ltd, all now in administration - overseen a brand refresh, and launched the new company vision “Leaders in Customer Service and Performance.”
Peter Skoulding, chief finance officer at the time of Midas' administration, is chartered accountant and was described on the Midas website as having “a track record of sustained strategic, commercial and technical success across diverse sectors”. Mr Skoulding spent 15 years at Mitie from 2003, holding a variety of finance positions. He left as director of finance planning in early 2018 and held a range of senior finance roles at the publicly listed Smiths News before joining Midas.
