Builders Merchants Journal – BMJ Publishing to Builders Merchants and the UK merchanting industry for more than 95 years
The latest research from accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers found that nine construction firms a day are going out of business.
829 construction companies went into insolvency in the first three months of 2009, a rise of 15% on the same period in 2008.
Jonathan Hook, construction and housebuilding leader at PwC said: “No one in the industry will be too surprised about these figures as the downturn in workload is being felt across the country. The barriers to entry in some parts of the sector are relatively low and therefore in boom times many new companies performing general construction and trades spring up, we are seeing a natural reversal of this as volume contracts.”
He added that he expects numbners to increase this year, “particularly as the cash unwinding impact of a downturn in volume is experienced – those that aren’t planning for that now could get caught out.”
