MacWhirters in administration
7th July 2015
UK: Long-established air conditioning and refrigeration contractor MacWhirter Limited has gone into administration.
Richard Hawes and Matthew Cowlishaw of Deloitte were appointed as joint administrators of the 133-year-old, family-run company late on Friday.
In a statement, the administrators announced 52 redundancies, with the retention of three staff in order to ensure an orderly wind down of the business and to protect the value of work-in-progress on several contracts.
Richard Hawes, joint administrator and partner in Deloitte’s Restructuring Services practice, said: “The Company has recently experienced losses from several contracts due to poor margins being achieved. As a result of which, the Company was unable to continue to trade and the Directors took the decision to place the Company into Administration on 3 July 2015.”
The failure of the business follows the sad death of the company’s driving force, CEO Tony MacWhirter, in January.
The company was founded in 1882 by William McWhirter, great grandfather of the recently deceased Tony MacWhirter. Although initially involved in electrical engineering, in 1934 the Cardiff branch of the firm took over the local Kelvinator agency and began to specialise in refrigeration. Subsequent years saw a continued emphasis on sales and service of refrigeration equipment and industrial air conditioning units and the opening of offices in Bristol, London and Horsham.
Related stories:
Tony MacWhirter – passing of a legend – January 27, 2015
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