The collapse of ISG

So here we are again…another huge contractor bites the dust leaving a tonne of smaller contractors and suppliers in the shite. My firm are going to take another big hit (doing design works for them on Barclays refit schemes). This will be the 4th contractor to go bust on us in 18 months. The building industry is a grim landscape at the moment.

The building industry is a grim landscape at the moment.

Are any industries immune to the current shitshow ? It seems not. retail/Mfg/construction/hospitality and energy are all taking a bath right now.

Yes, plenty of our customers have been hit too. One is owed a very significant amount of money. They’re a relatively small outfit too. Terrible state of affairs.

Don’t know if we or any of our customers have been hit & probably won’t know for a while, don’t remember working on any of their sites recently but they weren’t an organisation that I would ever feel the need to go the extra mile for….

Not surprised after seeing MJL go bust around a year ago. I only got inducted on an ISG job by shoe lane a couple of weeks ago this job having MJL on it which put a lot of delays in place. They did seem to run there jobs with the theory of do 50 weeks work in 30 weeks while putting every contractor under massive strain/stress.

Shame for the workers though.

The building industry is a grim landscape at the moment.

As others are saying, you are not alone in this.
Try being a charity post-covid, one who has for many years had all sorts of government funded work to do…

They did seem to run there jobs with the theory of do 50 weeks work in 30 weeks while putting every contractor under massive strain/stress.

Not just them, it was a business model for the big builders. Profit is getting away early. I use the term builders loosely as they don’t employ builders, they are management companies and every bit of building is sub-contractors. The majority of risk is passed on also.

absolute shower of shit the big construction companies in most cases. Some good people employed in them at times, but the organisation is a shower.

No surprises, like Carillion operating with slim margins, little risk or contingency built into the programme and it doesn’t take much for it all to go wrong, add in a degree of optimism, booking profits early to boost the balance sheet and you’ve got the perfect recipe for disaster.

Shame to see the mess it will leave and people out of pocket and looking for jobs in a tricky market.

Will be interesting to see what happens to the fit out subsidary of ISG which looks to have escaped the administration for now, worked with that sub on a few projects and it wasnt the shower of … like other ISG projects have been know to be.

They did seem to run there jobs with the theory of do 50 weeks work in 30 weeks while putting every contractor under massive strain/stress.

Shame for the workers though.

Feel for anyone losing out, but yeah not looked on fondly at our place.

Are any industries immune to the current shitshow

Fire and Security, aside the skills shortages.

I think we will be taking a pretty big hit from this. Luckily my teams exposure isn’t that bad anymore (this time last year would have been a very different story) but the wider company was still doing a decent amount of design work for them.

As others have said though, not the greatest to work with/for sometimes but it’s a crappy situation.

No surprises, like Carillion operating with slim margins, little risk or contingency built into the programme and it doesn’t take much for it all to go wrong

I was subbing to an Electrical Contractor (nearly two years ago, time flies) on a 4 blocks of flats site. Opening was due to be August. I started in March. It was quite clear even then that they would never get them finished anywhere close to August. Anyway, My one month on the site went to 9 months, finally got laid off just before Christmas, as the main work was finished, luckily, I got all of my pay. They went bust in January, owing over £10m. It was an eye opener working for them, there were 4 people on the site that were directly employed by the Company, out of probably 250 workers, the rest were subbies. The Management didnt have a clue, and woudlnt have one if it was put in front of their nose. I was told the Manager was coked up all day, I didnt believe it, but found out it was true, he was buying it off the Gateman, who was also the site thief, pallets were going misssing, and he was that thick that what he was stealing was being sold on FB marketplace. When it was brought to the Managers attention, he didnt want to sack him! I’m glad they went bust, they were dragging the building trade down, when most of the workers were doing a real good job.

A local tool supplier has gone bust this week (similar to screwfix but much smaller) – they had a £100m turnover so a fair sized business.
I had a job offer from them earlier this month but a friend in the trade thought there were issues with them so I did some extra research to confirm the suspicion.

FB-ATB are you based in Kent by any chance?