Everton Stadium cladding firm to be dissolved following £4m debt failure

Alucraft Systems, the facade specialist involved in the Everton Stadium cladding project, is set to be dissolved after its administrators confirmed £4 million of outstanding debts will remain uncollected.

The company, which entered administration in March 2024, will officially close by June, following a two-year process managed by PwC.

Despite efforts to recover funds, including engaging Gateley Vinden for consultancy, most of the £4 million debt, largely stemming from “disputed” customer contracts, has been considered “irrecoverable”.

As a result, 142 unsecured creditor claims, including from suppliers, will see little more than one per cent returned of the £17.4 million owed to them – just £179,520.

Its overdraft facility from the Bank of Ireland recovered just £475,000 out of the £6.2 million it was owed, leaving a loss of more than £5.5 million.

While Elaghmore, the UK-based private equity firm that acquired and owned Alucraft Group, including Alucraft Systems, in 2018 to create the Clarison Group in 2021, will not see “any return” of the £19.1 million owed to them in long-term loans.

Former employees, however, will receive full payment for what is owed to them in salaries and holiday pay amounting to £63,000.

Administrators said: “This is our final report, and the company will be dissolved three months after the notice of move from administration to dissolution has been registered at Companies House.

“Any unclaimed dividends will be paid to the Insolvency Services Account in accordance with the Insolvency Act 1986.

“Creditors who have not yet claimed their dividend should contact the joint administrators’ office promptly, failing which the unclaimed funds will be transferred to the ISA and creditors may apply to the Secretary of State for their release.”

Part of the Clarison Group, which brought together four building envelope brands within Ireland and the UK – Alucraft Ireland, Alucraft Systems UK, EAG and Williaam Cox, the companies separated with the group liquidated in July 2024.

The group itself reported a loss for the year ended 31 December 2022, after tax, of more than £7.7 million, building on a loss of £3.8 million in FY2021, and went under owing £13.8 million to contractor ISG which itself collapsed last year.

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