Dark Days In Durham As Another Window Firm Goes Bust

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James Lumb and James Clark of Interpath have been appointed as the joint administrators of PSP Architectural and PSP Aluminium. The former supplied façades and cladding, the latter, doors and windows.

A third associated company, Pressed Steel Products, is also under the same administration – the firm operated as a property holding company, owning two freehold properties, including the PSP Architectural site.

All three companies are based in county Durham. The administrators (who were appointed on 20 September 2024) for the group have made 84 redundancies.

Trading conditions

Like many other companies in the construction sector, the companies experienced trading difficulties in the last few months. Following the expected seasonal fall in sales in December 2023, sales into 2024 did not recover as expected which led to cashflow and liquidity issues. In May 2024, the directors were able to secure additional temporary funding to support a forecast increase in sales. Unfortunately, this increase did not materialise, so the directors resolved to appoint the joint administrators.

Upon appointment, both the Architectural and Aluminium businesses ceased to trade, which led to the redundancy of 64 employees of Architectural and all 20 employees of Aluminium. Two employees of Architectural have been retained to assist the administrators in complying with their statutory duties and in marketing the Architectural and Aluminium businesses for sale.

Lag to sales

James Lumb, managing director at Interpath says: “The challenges facing the construction sector in the UK are widespread. In particular, we are seeing issues in building products where even with positive sentiment in end user markets, such as housing around government policy and reducing interest rates, there is a long lag to sales. That is exactly what happened with PSP; the business had invested heavily in state-of-the-art equipment and IT solutions but was unable to withstand soft demand in the short term.

“We are seeking buyers for the business and any interested parties should contact us as soon as possible.

“We have a team supporting employees impacted by the appointment and will work with them to make representations to the Redundancy Payments Services.”

Picture: Valentine Place – the type of projects PSP Aluminium was engaged in.

www.interpath.com

Article written by Brian Shillibeer
26th September 2024

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