It has been announced that NIAMAC DEVELOPMENTS LTD, trading as SafeGlaze UK, has gone into administration with the loss of 130 jobs. This comes after the news that they had struck a commercial deal with rivals Safestyle UK to end their dispute, which also saw previous owner Mitu Misra rejoin the company to aid their recovery.

Administration

SafeGlaze UK have appointed Armstrong Watson as administrators and have provided this statement on their website:

On Tuesday 30th October 2018, Niamac Developments (trading as SafeGlaze UK) was placed into Administration and Rob Adamson, Mike Kienlen and Mark Ranson, Insolvency Practitioners at Armstrong Watson LLP, were appointed as Joint Administrators.

The Bradford based double glazing company designs, manufactures and installs UPVC windows and doors and has 8 sites across the country. Niamac Developments has ceased trading immediately and regrettably all 132 employees have been made redundant.

The Director, Phil O’Malley, commented:

“It is with deep regret that Niamac Developments Limited t/a SafeGlaze UK has today entered into Administration with Rob Adamson of Armstrong Watson being appointed Administrator.

“The business grew far in excess of the management’s and stakeholders expectations and more importantly than our key suppliers could service. Unfortunately the level of financial support required increased significantly because of the Company’s growth and the lack of constant supply from the main supplier of products.

“I would like to express my gratitude to the staff and our customers. I personally want to apologise to those suppliers adversely affected by the board of directors’ decision.”

Lead Administrator, Rob Adamson of Armstrong Watson LLP said:

“I can confirm that I was appointed Joint Administrator along with my fellow partners Mike Kienlen ad Mark Ranson over Niamac Developments Limited t/a SafeGlaze UK today. We have been working with the management over the last few days following the decision by the owner and stakeholders not to increase their exposure beyond the current level which is in excess of £11 million. The inability to secure materials to facilitate minimum weekly sales levels has adversely affected the Company’s cash flow and because of the uncertainty it was felt by the director that trading could not continue. It is with regret that 132 staff have been made redundant today and the Company has ceased to trade.

The Administrators are actively looking to dispose of the assets including the Company’s order book.

We are working with an employment specialist and Job Centre Plus to ensure that the employees are able to claim what is due to them as swiftly as possible from the Redundancy Payments Service.”

View the original article source on the Armstrong Watson website here

DGB People

A hit to all

UPDATE: 21:28PM TUESDAY 3OTH OCTOBER: SafeGlaze UK was registered with Certass and not FENSA. The statement above is taken directly from the website of the administrators.

UPDATE: 16:07PM WEDNESDAY 31ST OCTOBER: The above statement has since been modified to remove all mentions of “FENSA”. This has been corrected on the administrator’s website and also on DGB.

When the commercial deal was struck with Safestyle, it was hard to imagine Safeglaze continuing as a serious entity. I was being sent reports of staff moving back over to Safestyle, as well as orders, installers and other members of staff. The experiment was over.

Problem is, they have left home owners with more questions than answers. Orders that might go unfulfilled. Deposits taken. All with very little news and instruction to the home owner as to what to do next. I have at least half a dozen emails from home owners who had placed orders with SafeGlaze who now don’t know what to do. They tell me they have had very little information, no help, and have no idea how to move things forwards.

A quick note to all those home owners who have contacted this website asking for advice, now that the company is in administration, please get in touch with them as they will now be in a position to give some clarity. You can get to their website by clicking the link above.

It’s not only home owners that will be in a mess with this, but suppliers to SafeGlaze won’t be happy with this, or recent news at all. Any future sales figures would have included buying contracts from SafeGlaze, and they”re likely to take a revenue hit depending on the type of contract they have together. There’s no news yet of any kind of figures involved, but as the news is digested this may leak out into public knowledge.

Anything like this creates a degree of volatility in the immediate aftermath, for those who work for the company, suppliers of the company, home owners, and the industry in general. It gives a negative view of the sector from an outsider’s perspective. The industry is well known for companies starting up, becoming established, and then going bust leaving chaos in their wake. Most people will see this episode as very much the same thing.

This is perhaps one of the most dramatic stories about two rival companies in this industry for a very long time. A heady mix of personal feelings, explosive growth and disruption, court cases and a spectacular example of growing way too fast. Think we’ll all remember this one for a while.

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