A major building envelope specialist and two of its subsidiaries have filed notices of intention to appoint administrators.
Court records show that notices were lodged for holding company FK Group Ltd plus FK Construction Ltd and FK Facades Ltd on Monday (19 January).
Construction News understands that Cheshire-based FK Group has been affected by industry headwinds, including delays around the building safety regime and an ongoing unspecified legal issue related to collapsed tier one contractor ISG.
In a High Court judgment this week, a judge found against FK Facades ina dispute related to remedial works to a roof at a commercial property in Ashton Moss, Greater Manchester.
The judge ruled Paragon was entitled to claim £80,500 plus reimbursement adjudicator fees.
FK Group, which has been in business since 1979, ranked fourth in the latest CN Specialists Index of building envelope firms.
Its portfolio of ongoing projects includes work on Multiplex’s Elephant and Castle job in London.
FK Group’s most recent accounts showed it fell to a £5.9m pre-tax loss in the year to 31 March 2024, after turnover dropped by 23 per cent to £100.6m.
In the same period, FK Construction – its main contracting division – reported a pre-tax loss of £7.5m after its turnover halved and it booked £5.5m of exceptional items related to the legal dispute with ISG.
FK Facades, which provides curtain walling and rainscreen solutions, reported a pre-tax profit of £1.2m on turnover of £57.2m over the same period.
The 2024/25 accounts for all three firms are listed as overdue on the Companies House website.
The group suffered a cyber attack in September 2024, but it said the disruption had been minimal.
FK Group’s accounts showed it employed a monthly average of 164 staff as of March 2024. CN understands this number has fallen but exact details are unclear at this stage.
It has two other entities – building remediation contractor FK Resolv and fabrications specialist Premo.
Neither of those firms has filed a notice of intention.
FK Group chief executive Francis Keenan told CN last April that it had an order book of £200m and was seeing “continued growth” in its core markets.
A notice of intention to appoint administrators allows a company 10 days of protection from creditor action.
Bermans, the firm representing the three FK companies in the notices of intention, declined to comment when approached by CN for further information.
Calls to FK Group’s office number went unanswered.
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James Wilmore