South West construction giant Midas has left debts of more than £22m after going into administration - with dozens of creditors unlikely to be paid.
A report by administrators at global business advisory firm Teneo Financial Advisory Ltd reveals a total of £22,091,980 is owed by companies in the Midas group.
And the administrators said: "We do not think that the companies have sufficient property to enable a distribution to be made to unsecured creditors."
Exeter-headquartered Midas Group Ltd and its subsidiaries Midas Construction Ltd, Midas Retail Ltd, Mi-Space (UK) Ltd, Mi-Space Property Services Ltd, Midas Commercial Developments Ltd and Falmouth Developments Ltd all fell into administration in January 2022.
Work stopped at construction sites across the South West and 303 staff were made redundant. Teneo has now revealed that Midas Construction has left debts of £19,265,284, spread between dozens of creditors.
Mi-Space (UK) Ltd, the group's housebuilding arm, owes £2,542,533, with Midas Retail owing £22,494 and the overall Midas Group Ltd owing £261,669.
Founded in Devon in 1976, the Midas Group was one of the UK’s largest independent construction and property services providers.
The group delivered a complete range of construction related services, from seven regional offices across the South West and Wales, across numerous sectors including residential, leisure, education, industrial and healthcare.
Midas was recently ranked as the ninth largest private sector firm in the South West, by the Western Morning News Annual Business Guide 2021, with a reported turnover of £291,267,008.
But rumours had been circulating in recent weeks that the company was in financial trouble, after it announced a £2m loss in 2021 - its first deficit in 40 years of trading.
In January, Midas staff were told by calls and emails that the business was going into administration and there would be job losses.
Steve Hindley, group chairman, put the blame on disruption and supply chain price hikes caused by the Covid pandemic, which, he said, caused contracts to be delayed or scrapped.
He said the disruption and supply chain inflation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in a number of critical contracts being postponed or cancelled and the resultant impact on the group’s working capital led to severe liquidity pressure and meant the group was no longer able to operate.
Mi-space’s property services arm was sold to the Bell Group in January, bolstering its already strong presence in the South West and Wales, and is therefore not part of the administration process. Airdrie-headquartered Bell is a market leader in the sector and already has offices across the South West in Plymouth, Taunton, Bristol, and South Wales, with plans to open up an office in Exeter in 2022.
