£106m-turnover contractor J Tomlinson falls into administration

Nottingham-headquartered contractor J Tomlinson has fallen into administration after failing to secure financing for future investment. The group has named Raj Mittal and Nathan Jones of FRP Advisory as joint administrators.

Raj Mittal commented: “Despite its scale and the success achieved across a number of its divisions, the severe impact of COVID and recent inflationary pressures meant that J. Tomlinson was not in a financial position to continue trading and so we have had to make the difficult decision to cease operations.”

Mittal added that the joint administrators were now “assessing options on next steps and have started our engagement with clients and creditors regarding ongoing projects and liabilities.” The majority of the firm’s approximately 400 staff have been made redundant upon the appointment of the joint administrators.

J Tomlinson was founded in 1950 as an electrical contracting firm and has since expanded across numerous markets. The group is a major UK contractor, operating through a network of regional offices in Sheffield, Derby, Wigan, Beeston, Sutton Coldfield, Doncaster, Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Wakefield.

In its accounts for the year ending September 30 2021, the group reported turnover of £106.2 million, up from £94.7 million. Despite its improved performance following the initial disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company still fell to a £657,000 pre-tax loss.

At the time, the company’s fixed assets were valued at £2.9 million and current assets at £38.2 million. At that point, the company’s net assets amounted to £5.6 million.

J Tomlinson’s Chief Executive Mark Davis said that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the company had worked “tremendously hard to build the JTL brand across our chosen sectors with great success”. However, the group’s position has been exacerbated by inflation, ultimately leading to its collapse.

Mark Davis commented: "JTL has a number of divisions across facilities management, regeneration, refurbishment, engineering services and care. It is the latter division which has been battling long term contracts with hyperinflation, schemes priced pre-COVID which ultimately has impaired the group's cash-flow.”

"We as a board have worked tirelessly to attract additional overall finance into the group to invest for the future. Sadly today, we have to announce we have been unsuccessful in this regard.”


Read more about the high levels of distress impacting the UK's construction industry.

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