Wrekin Construction.

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #11 by IBH » Fri Mar 13, 2009 10:44 pm

Sadly I've read reports that Ernst & Young are not looking to sell Wrekin as a going concern and are going to 'wind-down' the business, having made 400 members of staff redundant retaining 72 to assist with winding down the company.
I read one report that Wrekin's chairman (and owner) David Unwin personally telephoned creditors to let them know Wrekin was about to be in serious trouble. However reports have surfaced raising questions about his acquisition of Wrekin and the finances of his Tamar Group Ltd which bought Wrekin Group PLC, the parent of Wrekin Construction Company LTD.

About two years ago Wrekin were in difficulties after the disastrous expand-at-all-cost policy by the former owners (the Frain family)and David Unwin reportedly bought an 85% majority stake through his London & Middle Eastern Group Ltd business (for a nominal sum) and subsequently acquiring the remaining shares for £750k after he'd reportedly invested £11m by Wrekin issuing new shares to stablise its finances.

However its come to light that the £11m investment actually saw Wrekin take ownership of a Ruby known as ''The Gem of Tanzania'', which Wrekin got by issuing new shares and handing them over in exchange. Apparently the stone has a ''fair value of £11m''. Apparently Wrekin's accounts went from a net liability of £8m to net assets of £6m after it acquired the Ruby.
Contract Journal report that:
''Its validity and worth came guaranteed, according to Wrekin, by a professional valuer at the Instituto Gemmologico Italiano, based in Valenza, Italy, on 31 August 2007''.
Apparently its in a safe deposit box in the UK but Peter GReenwood has never seen it!
See:
http://www.contractjournal.com/Articles ... stone.html

The Birmingham Post are reporting the same story, also adding that ''Accounts filed at Companies House say the Gem of Tanzania was bought “in exchange for the issue of £11,000,000 2 per cent cumulative redeemable preference shares.” It says the gem was valued by “a professional valuer at the Instituto[sic] Gemmologico Italiano, based in Valenza, Italy, on August 31, 2007.”

However, the Istituto Gemmologico Italiano, a government-recognised Italian institution, said it had no records of the “Gem of Tanzania”, was not open in August, and did not do any valuations at its site in Valenza, which was solely for teaching''.


and Ernst & Young refused to comment about the “Gem of Tanzania”, but said it had identified some other financial issues.

The spokesman said: “While the Administrator’s investigations are at an early stage, there are a number of issues which have already been identified.

Over recent months, credit insurance for Wrekin Construction has been significantly reduced or withdrawn completely.

“Amounts due to the Crown in respect of VAT and PAYE appear to exceed £3.5m. Amounts believed to be due to Wrekin Construction in respect of government contracts exceed £2m.

“Over the last 12 months Wrekin Group has invested approximately £2m in relation to land for redevelopment and the acquisition of two businesses – Toft Johnson Construction and Watson Dallas.

“At Appointment, Wrekin Construction was the subject of five winding up petitions and approximately 40 County Court Judgments.

http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingha ... -23133971/


It certainly raises a lot of questions?


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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #12 by Martyn Henley » Mon Mar 16, 2009 7:07 pm

Seems like the former staff are not happy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/7946472.stm

I think this story will go on for while yet

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #13 by Gordon 2 » Sun Jun 14, 2009 11:45 pm

Unwin is a renowned assett stripper, if you guys knew the amount of companies he's bought and then disbanded you would most certainly be suprised. His son David junior runs then sells the plant off. HCL, St Mary's SOT, Equatrek and many more. I have lost count of the may different yards and offices they've worked out of.
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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #14 by IBH » Mon Jun 15, 2009 9:26 pm

Apparently under Unwins leadership £2m was invested by Wrekin Group PLC (Wrekin Construction parent) to acquire and provide ongoing funding to additional businesses comprising:
Toft Johnson Construction (which itself was in difficulty, before Wrekin bought them)
Watson Dallas Window Solutions- bought out of receivership, Scottish window manufacturer
Britannia Land Investments- non-trading company that owns a disused colliery
Wrekin Construction (Scotland) PLC- non-trading subsidiary
Kingstone Homes Ltd- company consisting of three pieces of land (all mortgaged)

I'm no expert in these matter but it seems Unwin (and Woodcock) were either using Wrekin's cash-flow to fund some of their ventures outside or they were looking for a place to dump their less attractive operations when they realised they couldn't turn around the group as they'd hoped?

Ernst & Young are reportedly chasing Unwin for monies he/The Tamar Group owe Wrekin Group and recently the London & Middle Eastern Group, Equtrek (UK) and Britannia management Services have all been wound up with the rest of The Tamar Group to follow.

It has also been reported that on April 2 a new company Equtrek Group was reigtered with Unwin as a director. :x

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #15 by IBH » Tue Jul 14, 2009 9:47 pm

A few Wrekin related images from my personal collection:
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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #16 by IBH » Tue Oct 20, 2009 8:52 pm

The latest in the Wrekin saga is that The Gem of Tanzania is worth next to nothing and is currently for sale via GVA Grimley, with its value apparently around £100.
David James Unwin, the BBC have revealed has been convicted of ten counts of theft in 2002 after he sold on plant still owned by a finance company.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8310433.stm

From another forum:
The Wrekin Ruby was not the only piece of creative accounting that the shyster who owned Wrekin (for less than two years) used

For example:

Common accounting practice is to write off an assett in the books over a period of years. Wrekin would write off, say, a JCB excavator over 4 years. At this point Wrekin's owner would sell the JCB to a plant disposal company he owned ( Equitrek) for £1. Three months later Wrekin would buy the same JCB back from Equitrek at full market value, say £25,000. A nice way to take £25,000 out of the company and into the owners pocket.

Apparently in the last 12 months of Wrekin's life over £2 million was taken out of the company by these kind of scams.

The reason I know this ?

I was an employee of Wrekin for many years right up until their demise. The JCB scam was one that was uncovered by some of the guys below Director level a couple of weeks befor they went under - and yes it has been bought to the attention of the Administrators.
Source: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ ... pic=126780

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #17 by IBH » Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:53 pm

An article about Wrekin's homemade crack and seat machine (photo below)
Heavyweight breaker
22 June, 2000

Wrekin Construction has successfully completed a £3.6M 'crack and seat' carriageway reconstruction contract using a machine it developed itself. The firm used its new mobile guillotine to help rebuild 44,000m 2of the M54 in just 89 days.


Crack and Seat was developed in the US in the 1980s and arrived in Britain some years later. It was first used on a UK motorway in 1997. It has become increasingly popular as an alternative to the conventional reconstruction of concrete roads.


The method involves using a heavy weight to create cracks right through the concrete pavement. It leaves the concrete in pieces of sufficient size to provide enough structural integrity to act as either a capping layer or sub-base, allowing a bituminous or concrete surface to be laid on top.


Before developing its own machine, Wrekin carried out contracts using hired-in units but found them to be unreliable.


Managing director John Evans says: 'We have hired machines before and had breakdowns. On lane rental you can't afford to have the process stop. The Highways Agency want us off the road as soon as possible.'


When the contractor first got involved in this sort of work it tried using a demolition ball on the end of a 35t crane, but found the cracking it achieved was uncontrolled. The second step was to develop an oblong weight to replace the ball. 'It was fairly unsophisticated but there was some control, ' says Evans.


Wrekin then looked at a job that would have required two machines with that capacity, and decided the time had come to 'let the mechanical people loose on it'.


The result is a large guillotinestyle weight mounted on the body of an old blacktop paver. The 2.6m wide falling blade has a variable weight of up to five tonnes, and can induce cracks through the full thickness of a concrete carriageway in a single blow.


The key difference between Wrekin's machine and others lies with the control system. The blade is raised by a hydraulic ram and wire cable, and is activated by an air valve. Evans says this will result in far fewer breakdowns, as the system will not be affected by vibrations from the falling weight.


The contractor spent £20,000 developing the guillotine breaker and believes there is enough work of this type coming up in the UK to justify the construction of a second machine.
Source: http://www.nce.co.uk/heavyweight-breaker/826824.article
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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #18 by Martyn Henley » Wed Feb 17, 2010 12:00 am

Final chapter of the Wrekin saga ?

A giant ruby once thought to be valued at £11m and used to support an insolvent Shropshire construction firm has been sold for £8,000.

The "Gem of Tanzania" was entered as one of Wrekin Construction's assets in 2007 to help prop up its balance sheet.

In 2009 it went into administration when the Royal Bank of Scotland withdrew its services. It then emerged the stone's valuation had been forged.

Administrator Ernst & Young said it had more than 60 offers for the ruby.

Ernst & Young declared the 2kg (4.41lbs) stone's £11m valuation and its accompanying documents a forgery in 2009.

Valuation leap

At the time Wrekin Construction's managing director David Unwin claimed he had been the victim of a third party valuation fraud.

He said: "I believed it [the stone] to be worth a lot more when I bought it."

The stone previously belonged to Tamar Group, a parent company of Wrekin Construction that was also owned by Mr Unwin.

It had been entered in Tamar Groups accounts with a value of about £300,000, yet 12 months later when it appeared on Wrekin Construction's balances it had an £11m valuation.

A BBC Inside Out West Midland's investigation found that Mr Unwin had a 12 month suspended prison sentence for theft from finance companies in 2002 and had previously run 30 other firms that either went into administration or were liquidated.

Wrekin Construction, based in Shifnal, Shropshire, made 420 people redundant at its plants in Shropshire, Yorkshire, Northamptonshire and Cheshire when it went into administration in March 2009.


Source.. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/shropshire/8518242.stm

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #19 by IBH » Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:54 pm

The Wrekin ruby: legal action underway
18 March, 2010

By Tom Bill

Administrator report reveals action came after “a number of unusual transactions”

The administrator of civil engineering firm Wrekin has said legal action will be taken against individuals connected to the collapsed firm.

Its demise was famously accelerated by a ruby called the Gem of Tanzania, which had been valued at £11m and swapped for equity in the company when it was bought by Staffordshire-based businessman David Unwin in December 2007.

The ruby was later sold for £8,010 after the Italian institute that the company said had originally valued the gemstone denied all knowledge of it.

In a progress report, administrator Ernst & Young said the action against unnamed individuals would follow “a number of unusual transactions” that were identified by forensic accountants and law firm Eversheds.

The report said: “Proceedings have now been served in relation to certain transactions. However, in order to avoid prejudicing potential realisations from the claim, we are unable to provide further details at this time.”

More than 500 people lost their jobs when the company went under.

The report also said that £648,000 out of a total of £10.9m owed to Wrekin on outstanding jobs had been recovered and the process to recover the rest could take 18 months as contracts are completed.

It revealed that bank RBS is owed £2.7m while unsecured creditors are owed an estimated £31m, including £24.5m to the pension scheme and over £3.3m to the HMRC.

The report also showed that administrator fees have already climbed to over £600,000.



Source: http://www.building.co.uk/story.asp?sec ... 160255&c=1

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Re: Wrekin Construction.

Post #20 by IBH » Wed May 05, 2010 9:28 pm

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