A timber and building materials supplier in Wales has been successfully sold out of administration.
Gwent-based TG Howell & Sons Ltd entered administration earlier this month, with Katrina Orum and Huw Powell of Begbies Traynor appointed as joint administrators on 5 February.
They oversaw a pre-packaged sale of most of TG Howell’s assets to Robert Price (Builders Merchants) Ltd, securing the jobs of all 53 employees.
Under the terms of the sale, TG Howell’s builders merchant stores will continue to trade while the wholesale side of the business will close, Begbies Traynor announced on 15 February.
Established in 1956, TG Howell expanded from manufacturing ladders into a family-owned independent timber and builders merchant covering South Wales, with branches in Newport and Pontypool. A five-acre wholesale distribution yard specialising in the treatment of timber was also established.
Huw Powell, joint administrator and partner at Begbies Traynor in Cardiff, said the firm “began to experience financial difficulties and volatile trading as a consequence of the [Covid] pandemic. This was further exacerbated by a shift in the post-Covid market with margins falling away over the past 18 months”.
He added that creditors can expect to “share in a return that will exceed what is achieved in most insolvencies”.
TG Howell’s most recent accounts, for the year to 31 October 2022, showed turnover of £11.4m, down by 10 per cent from £12.6m in 2020/21, while the firm turned a pre-tax profit of £878,100 in 2020/21 into a loss of £359,400 the following year.
