When construction giant Carillion collapsed in 2018, it did so with debts of £2 billion owed to more than 30,000 suppliers. By the time that ISG folded in 2024, it had amassed debts of more than £1.1 billion. At the time of the collapse, it was about to post a pre-tax loss of £138 million. Closer to home, when demolition contractor Squibb Group went under, it did so owing more than £24 million.
In each instance, creditors had little prospect of recouping any of the monies owed.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the course of the past year or so, around 5,000 UK construction companies have slipped beneath the surface. Many of these will have done so with debts, some of them hefty. Those debts will have had a significant impact upon the entire supply chain, from plant hirers and scaffolders to piling contractors to recruitment companies.
Now I could ramble on about how this typifies the boom and bust cycle of construction. I could hold forth on how this is a reflection upon the wafer-thin profit margins within the sector. I could wax lyrical about how none of these major collapses has led to any kind of shift in the way in which this industry does business. And I could also question just how many of the directors involved in all of this bounced back, seemingly unscathed, to start afresh while their supply chain was left to carry the can.
But I am going to take a different approach in this instance. And for my inspiration, I am going to use the satellite navigation app, Waze.
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