Double glazing giant Everest owed over £30m as it crashed into administration
Double glazing giant Everest owed more than £30m when it crashed into administration earlier this year, it has been revealed.
Newly-filed documents with Companies House show the dire state of the company’s finances as it failed in April.
At the time, the move into administration put 350 jobs at Everest at risk of redundancy.
The business had been acquired by British venture capitalist Jon Moulton’s investment firm Better Capital over a decade ago after it required a restructuring.
The collapse into administration also came four years after Moulton conducted a rescue deal for the loss making business during the pandemic, after social distancing measures prevented its workforce from visiting customers in their homes.
The pre-pack administration, which took place in June 2020, saved hundreds of jobs and helped the business complete existing customer orders.
The latest administration process has been overseen by Chris Farrington, Lee Manning and Cameron Gunn of Resolve Advisory.
According to the professional services firm’s latest filing with Companies House, Everest owed its majority shareholder, BECAP 12, almost £8.8m when it entered administration.
Resolve said the company is likely to receive between 12 per cent and 15 per cent of what it is owed.
HMRC is also owed nearly £4.8m and is expected to receive between four and eight per cent of what it is due.
Unsecured creditors, who are not expected to receive anything, were owed more than £15.8m.
Eversest faced ‘large threat’ to its business
In its document, Resolve said: “The Covid pandemic throughout 2020/21 created a challenging economic environment, with lockdowns impacting the company’s ability to operate and resulting in reduced sales and significant run-rate losses.
“However, in 2021 an operational restructure and delivered a 50 per cent reduction in the overhead base and quality improvements across service and manufacturing, which saw the company realise considerable improvements in gross margin.
“Broadly this restructure involved cutting on production and one customer service premises and a reduction in installation centres and headcount.
“Whilst the operational restructure was successful in reducing the company’s internal costs, between 2021 and 2023 the company was subject to various external market challenges created by the cost-of-living crisis.
“Wider economic pressure impacted customer confidence and depressed demand for the window market.
“On the supply side, material cost increases of c.30 per cent caused the collapse of the company’s sole supplier of bespoke UPVC profile.
“This collapse was a large threat to the company’s ongoing business and required the focus of senior and operational management for five moneys to mitigate and successfully transition to a newly engineering product set, while using the opportunity to position the company’s UPVC products as being market leading by the end of Q3 2023.”