Floor specialist owed creditors £11m at time of collapse

Collapsed floor specialist Malin Industrial Concrete Floors owed creditors £10.6m when it went under last month.

The firm, which worked with major contractors including Buckingham Group and Sir Robert McAlpine, focused on warehouse work.

The Manchester-based contractor worked mainly with laser screed flooring, which involves machines trimming concrete slabs into exact floor slabs before lowering them into the ground. It tabled a turnover of £25.6m in its most recent accounts.

When it went under in February, it owed £10.6m to creditors, most of which should be paid back, according to a statement by Malin’s administrator Mazars.

The document also revealed details about the struggles Malin faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it was mainly working on fixed-price contracts. That meant it “suffered further losses on projects due to material cost increases”. It then struggled to secure funding to keep the business afloat.

One firm, Oxfordshire-based Bibby Financial Services, had provided a facility to Malin. Another unnamed firm was interested in becoming a majority shareholder but ended its interest in late 2022, and asked for a £1m loan to be paid back. Malin financed that repayment by transferring over the warranty to its freehold property and head office.

On top of that, “a lot of scheduled work” for December 2022 was pushed back to January 2023, and then February.

“[That] further impact[ed] cashflow through a lack of ability to draw down on work done from the [£1m loan] facility,” said the administrators. By the time it had appointed Mazars it had received a number of letters threatening legal action.

Bibby is owed £1.2m due to the facility it provided, which Mazars expects will be paid back via Malin’s book debts.

Malin’s former workers, who were all let go in February, are also expected to be paid in full. Mazars expects that the 23 employees will claim around £25,000 in total.

The unsecured creditors, which includes a mix of plant-hire companies, subcontractors and material suppliers, are expected to claim around £10.6m in total from the firm.

Mazars said unsecured creditors should get at least some of their money back, but pointed out that the extent of repayments was “uncertain” as it “is dependent upon the level of realisations and costs incurred” during the administration process.

Construction News approached Bibby for comment.