In news that was perhaps widely expected, it has been announced that Anglian Home Improvements have reached an agreement to fulfil the orders on the books at Everest. This is a similar arrangement to that of Safestyle when that business closed.
Here is the statement in full from Anglian:
ReSolve agrees contract with Anglian Home Improvements to fulfil Everest 2020 Ltd customer orders
Cameron Gunn, Chris Farrington and Lee Manning, Partners at ReSolve, the leading independent business advisory practice, were appointed as joint administrators of Everest 2020 Limited (“Everest” or the “Company”) on 24 April 2024.
Following a previous sale out of administration which took place in 2020 and despite significant investment, Everest has continued to face financial difficulties as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Upon appointment, ReSolve worked rapidly to assess all available options, including a prospective sale of the business as a going concern. Unfortunately, that offer did not materialise and therefore the majority of employees were made redundant on 29 April 2024. ReSolve is providing support to those employees, including information on how to make redundancy payment claims, and have engaged specialist firm Evolve to assist.
The joint administrators have now reached an agreement to sell certain assets to Anglian Home Improvements (“Anglian” or the “Purchaser”), trading as ASHI Group Ltd. While the terms of the agreement are finalised, the joint administrators have entered a sub-contractor arrangement that will enable customer orders to be fulfilled by Anglian where possible. This will ensure all Everest customers impacted by the Company’s insolvency will have the opportunity to carry out their home improvement projects.
The interim agreement will enable customers to arrange completion or fulfilment of their orders, including those customers who were mid-way through the installation process, as well as customers who had booked an installation with Everest.
Cameron Gunn, joint administrator and senior partner at ReSolve commented:
“Despite our best efforts to secure a sale of the business as a going concern, we were racing against the clock and unfortunately it was not possible. We are now focused on supporting employees during this difficult transition. We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Anglian Home Improvements which gives Everest customers the certainty and peace of mind that their home improvement projects can now be completed.”
Peter Mottershead, executive chairman of Anglian Home Improvements said:
“Anglian Home Improvements has agreed with the administrators to support Everest customers in what we know is a very difficult situation, and we hope this agreement will go some way towards alleviating the concern and burden on those Everest customers who have been impacted. Our customer service teams will be making contact with customers in the coming days and weeks to discuss the status of each order with the customers and where possible arrange completion of orders, prioritising those who were part-way through the installation process. I can also confirm that Anglian Home Improvements will honour the terms of the contract, including the price, that had previously been agreed with each customer.”
The deal means clients that have ongoing work are going to see their projects completed, with Anglian then turning to all existing Everest clients who are yet to have their projects started.
The statement does not mention the brand being taken up by Anglian in the same way they did with Safestyle. However, there is still work being done by ReSolve and it may be the case that new information is published which will explain what is going to happen to the Everest brand. I do still think that Anglian will take the brand on and incorporate it into their newly reorganised ASHI group.
From a retail perspective, it will be a relief to the thousands of clients that were either waiting on work to be completed or to have work started. Sadly, the closure of Everest has meant the loss of hundreds of jobs and I hope that they all find new employment as soon as possible.
Another point I might add is about monopoly. We have seen the rapid consolidation of three established, national brands, to one in the matter of 6 months. Could this be something that the Competition and Markets Authority takes a look at?
There will be further updates in the coming weeks and this story will be updated when new information becomes available.
Read the original statement in full here: https://www.anglianhome.co.uk/news/administrators-of-everest-2020-ltd-agree-contract-with-anglian
Everest 2020 Ltd Put Into Administration: https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/2024/04/everest-2020-ltd-put-into-administration/
Everest Staff Made Redundant: https://www.doubleglazingblogger.com/2024/04/everest-staff-made-redundant/
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Everest managed to descend into insolvency by totally misguided and poor management.
They had a perfect set up, 1500 sales reps plus 200 managers, none were paid a salary or retainer, relying entirely on successful sales. This reduced to 120 reps on commission with managers on PAYE. The problem was that these managers were typically car sales with no knowledge or experience in the industry.