Sell-off begins as EY appointed administrators at Hewden

Sam Woodward and Colin Dempster of EY’s restructuring team have been appointed joint administrators at plant hire firm Hewden.

More than 1,000 had been employed by the firm across 32 depots throughout Scotland and the UK.

Most recent accounts, covering the 12-month period to Dec 31 2014, show that the company made a pre-tax loss of £16.6m on sales of £105.9m. It notched up exceptional costs of £2.2m, attributed to “severance, depot closure costs and other restructuring”, and forked out £8.9m in interest payments during the year.

Hewden had been seeking to refinance £190 million of borrowings, which are due to expire in the coming months, and has been working with restructuring experts at Deloitte, who were hoping to refinance the business or sell it.

However, it has now emerged that EY has already overseen the sale of three divisions of the Group to Ashtead Plant Hire Company Limited – the Access and Power generation assets, the On-site plant business and the business and assets of Interlift Limited.

A total of 133 employees will transfer across with the businesses, EY said.

The Manchester-based plant hire business consists of Hewden Stuart Limited, Hewden Properties Limited, Interlift Limited and The Rigging House Limited.

Sam Woodward, Joint Administrator, said: “Management has been attempting to operationally reshape the business to focus on higher margin and quicker returning assets and services. However, this has proven challenging with the Group’s capital structure and the recent trading environment. Management recently undertook a number of initiatives including approaching new funders and potential acquirers to recapitalise the business, but unfortunately these efforts proved unsuccessful.”

He continued: “We are assessing the optimum strategy for maximising value in the remainder of the Group. In the meantime, we will continue to work with stakeholders to maintain service levels to customers who have assets on hire.”

On appointment of EY as administrators, a total of 251 Hewden employees were made redundant across the Company’s depot and on-site locations.

Employees affected by redundancy are being offered appropriate advice and support in making claims from the Redundancy Payments Office for outstanding wages, as well as redundancy and notice pay.

Mr Woodward added: “It is with regret that 251 people have been made redundant. Our specialist team will work with those affected to help them claim outstanding wages and other payments due from the Redundancy Payments Office.”

Any parties interested in acquiring assets of the Group should contact the Joint Administrators.

The administrators are being advised by Addleshaw Goddard.