Envelope specialist went under owing more than £24m

Cladding firm English Architectural Glazing went under owing more than £24m, it has been revealed.

The company – which was part of the collapsed Clarison Group – went under in June, a matter of months after being separated from the former group.

According to a Companies House filing by administrators at Begbies Traynor, it owed just over £3.3m to unsecured creditors including members of its supply chain.

The administrators estimate that only £20,000 of the total will be recouped for unsecured creditors.

The filing states that more than £21m of the total is owed to fixed-charge creditors, with £15.6m of that owed to its private equity owner Elaghmore.

Irish firm Jhaw Holdings – formerly part of the Clarison Group – is owed £3.5m, while three former directors – Simon Gladwin, Jeremy Cocks and Edward Whipp – are owed £593,490 each.

Some 46 ex-employees are owed a total of £812,350, according to Begbies Traynor.

The administrators estimate they can realise £568,390 from sources including cash at bank, released retentions and plant sales.

The last published accounts for the Suffolk-registered commercial glazing specialist showed it turned over £21.7m in the year to 31 December 2023, up from £15.2m in the prior year.

It posted a pre-tax loss of £289,670, an improvement on the pre-tax loss of £578,220 posted in 2022.

Company directors blamed inflation for a challenging year.

The accounts, which were signed off on 28 February 2025, said 58 per cent of revenue for this year had been secured through contracts won, with another 20 per cent confirmed verbally.

They said company forecasts indicated the firm needed to win another £5.5m of new contracts in the following 12 months to continue as a going concern.

This would also need to see it apply “appropriate cost reduction measures such as removing bonuses and incentives and delaying improvements and upgrades”.

The accounts also said the group had submitted tenders on 12 projects and “the directors are confident that it will win and generate sufficient revenue on at least one additional contract to exceed the required £5.5m additional revenue that is required in the forecast”.

That the work was not secured at the time represented a “material uncertainty” over whether it could continue as a going concern.

Subsidiary Multi Fab Ltd also appointed administrators on 6 June.

The £85m-turnover Clarison Group was formed in 2021 when private equity investor Elaghmore brought together UK-based Alucraft Systems and English Architectural Glazing with Irish firms Alucraft and Williaam Cox.

Alucraft Systems went into administration in April 2024 and the Clarison Group was liquidated in July 2024.