ISG lighting subcontractor went down owing £2.1m

Subcontractor Seventynine Lighting, which went down in October, owed more than £2m, administrators have confirmed.

Insolvency professionals at Forvis Mazars said the £11m-turnover firm, based in Gloucestershire, owed £2.1m to creditors when it collapsed last year following ISG’s fall into administration.

Its statement-of-affairs form posted at Companies House on 13 January shows that £1.8m of the total was owed to trade creditors for work carried out on ISG sites.

Some 34 ex-employees and directors were also owed £50,000, and HMRC just under £11,000.

The firm only has about £300,000 available in assets for administrators to recoup, with the tax body and former staff members first in line to receive the cash.

A previous report from Forvis Mazars outlined that the company had traded successfully since 2006, turning over £10.7m and making a pre-tax profit of £665,700 in the year to 31 May 2023.

But because it was owed the money by ISG and did most of its work on the contractor’s sites, the firm could not continue to operate after ISG’s fall.

“ISG subcontracted to the company and [was] a debtor for approximately £2m,” the November document said. “ISG was also a major source of work for the company; however, following the administration of ISG, all sites closed and work immediately stopped.”

Other firms in the 79 Group – Seventynine Holdings, Seventynine Group and Seventynine Eco – are not in administration and continue to trade.

Subsidiaries of ISG owed more than £301m to their supply chains, with most not expected to be recouped, administrators’ reports have previously revealed.

ISG turned over £2.2bn and employed more than 3,000 people before its collapse. This week, seven former senior staff landed roles at other contractors.