Eleven firms in the ISG family – including the UK holding company – entered liquidation rather than appointing administrators, Construction News can reveal.
In September, accountancy firm EY was appointed as the administrator for eight of ISG’s most well-known companies after the £2.2bn-turnover firm’s collapse that month.
New analysis by CN shows that during the two months after the firm’s demise, staff from accountancy and business advisory firm Azets UK were appointed as liquidators for 11 additional UK companies in the ISG group.
These businesses included the holding company for all of ISG’s operations, ISG Ltd.
Documents filed by Azets with Companies House do not list any monies owed to the supply chain. But they do show inter-company debts of £111.2m, mainly to EY-administered companies ISG Construction, ISG Central and ISG Retail.
They also show ISG Ltd, ISG Overseas Investments Ltd and ISG Construction Holdings Ltd each owed £1 to Goldman Sachs, while ISG Ltd owed a further £1 to Santander’s UK operations.
In addition, the firms owed a total of £53.4m to HMRC.
Insolvency industry sources told CN that the involvement of multiple parties made it more complicated to determine the scale of ISG’s debt to the taxpayer because it is unclear whether the debts identified by EY and Azets intersect or can be added together.
In separate documents filed with Companies House, EY said the eight ISG subsidiaries whose administrations they are managing owed £90.2m to HMRC.
CN asked EY and Azets to provide a combined total that ISG Ltd and its entities owed HMRC when it was placed into administration. EY said it was not able to provide the detail requested, and Azets had not responded by the time of publication.
ISG Ltd’s most recent accounts, covering the year to 31 December 2022 and published in May 2023, described 53 subsidiaries.
Of these, 19 were based in Europe, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. The status of ISG Ltd and its 34 UK-based subsidiaries is listed below.
ISG Cathedral – one of ISG’s fit-out businesses – was purchased by Morris & Spottiswood in the weeks following ISG’s collapse, saving 100 jobs. The firm was listed on Companies House as dormant, and has been dissolved as well in its ISG-owned format.
Of the 15 other ISG firms in the UK that were dormant when ISG went under, 14 have now been dissolved.
Dormant firms can be struck off the Companies House register without going through administration or liquidation procedures if they have not traded for the past three months, have no outstanding debts or liabilities, and there is no legal action pending against them.
The other firm, Exterior International Ltd, has an active proposal to be struck off the company register.
In February, one of the firms that entered liquidation, ISG Pearce, came into the spotlight after a housing association announced plans to demolish a block built by the company. Elim Housing Association had been pursuing ISG Pearce for £4m worth of defects, and said it could no longer afford the necessary remediation after the firm went into administration.
ISG’s collapse also had a substantial impact on the UK government’s coffers. In January, senior civil servants revealed the business’s demise would hit the Ministry of Justice’s new prisons programme to the tune of more than £300m.
A spokesperson for HMRC said: “We take a supportive approach to dealing with customers who have tax debts, working with them to find the best possible solution based on their financial circumstances.”
| Insolvency firms appointed to manage ISG’s UK-based subsidiaries | |||
| Administration managed by EY | Liquidation managed by Azets | Dormant ISG firms without administrators or liquidators | ISG firms sold off following its collapse (with no insolvency firms involved) |
| ISG Central Services Ltd | ISG Ltd (ISG’s holding company in the UK) | Commtech (UK) Ltd | ISG Cathedral |
| ISG Construction Ltd | Totty Developments Ltd | Exterior International Ltd | |
| ISG Engineering Services Ltd | Interior Services Group Ltd | ISG Asia Ltd | |
| ISG Fit Out Ltd | Interior Services Group (UK Holdings) Ltd | ISG Developments Ltd | |
| ISG Retail Ltd | ISG Construction Holdings Ltd | ISG Developments (Southern) Ltd | |
| ISG Interior Services Group UK Ltd | ISG Overseas Investments Ltd | ISG Developments UK Holdings Ltd | |
| ISG Jackson Ltd | ISG Pearce Ltd | ISG Europe Ltd | |
| ISG UK Retail Ltd | ISG Retail and Leisure Ltd | ISG Jackson Special Projects Ltd | |
| ISG South Ltd | ISG Middle East Ltd | ||
| ISG Technology Solutions Ltd | ISG UK Ltd | ||
| Realys Holdings Ltd | Propencity Ltd | ||
| Realys Europe Ltd | |||
| ISG Northern Ltd | |||
| ISG UK Fit Out Ltd | |||
| Realys Ltd | |||