Geoffrey Osborne subsidiaries, Osborne Construction and Osborne Homes, have joined their parent in applying to go into administration.
Early yesterday (19 April), Geoffrey Osborne’s chairman, Andrew Osborne, announced that his company had filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators.
Later yesterday, the High Court received three more similar applications from the other parts of the business.
An announcement from the firm released late last night (19 April) said: “Further to our earlier announcement, we can confirm we have now also filed notices of intention to appoint administrators to three divisions of the group.
“These are Osborne Construction Ltd, Osborne Group Holdings and Osborne Homes Ltd.”
In its initial statement, Geoffrey Osborne said that it was “working with interested parties with the ambition that aspects of the business will be sold and will continue to trade.
Osborne Construction’s last published set of accounts were filed in July 2022, listing turnover of £44.5m in the year to 30 September 2021 and a pre-tax loss of £3.5m.
This compared to turnover of £155m and a pre-tax loss of £10.4m in the 18 months to the end of September 2020.
The latest set of accounts showed the firm had net liabilities of £12.1m, including £9.7m of borrowing.
“Productivity was severely impacted by Covid restrictions on a number of the company’s projects due to their location, with safe working practices being particularly difficult to establish on congested city centre sites,” the company said in a report accompanying the figures.
Accounts released in September 2022 for Osborne Homes, the group’s residential building arm, showed a £91,000 profit on a turnover of just £206,000, with net liabilities of £6.3m.
The revenue figure was down from £9.1m during the 18 months to September 2020.
Osborne Group Holdings, is non-trading and is the ultimate owner of all the firms in the group.
In 2022, it was acquired by Rosewood Holdings, a company with the same shareholders as Osborne Group Holdings.
