It’s not that often the world of football collides with the world of fenestration, but in another hit to the sector, the supplier of facades, curtain walling and cladding to Everton’s new stadium has gone into administration.
Alucraft Systems on March 22nd filed a notice on The Gazette appointing administrators:
See full notice here: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/4585482
This follows on from the failures of Euramax, Prime Glazing Supplies and Tradesmith all within a short space of time.
What are we seeing?
The stream of administrations continue in the fenestration sector and it’s not clear where they will end. But it’s not the only story ongoing. In other parts of the market there are companies doing perfectly fine, if not thriving. So if this is the case, why is there such polarisation happening right now?
Is this simply the continuation of the hangover after the post-lockdown boom which saw the entire see a huge rise in demand as homeowners spent their saved up cash? As we know, the huge amounts of stimulus and spending caused a rapid and major rise in inflation, which has since caused interest rates to rise, a cost of living crisis emerge and energy prices still high historically. Consumer demand is down, we know that. So all that combined is a toxic mixture and perhaps is the undoing for some of our companies.
Yet, there are pockets of success around the sector, and a conversation with a fellow fenestration colleague only reinforced that point. We discussed why it could be and one of the conclusions was that the really proactive and engaging companies will always find more success than those who are inactive and hope that things will turn around rather than working to turn them around themselves.
What we also discussed was that there would be more consolidation to come. What we may see is that some decide now is the time to sell up or simply close the doors and call time on their career in fenestration. Some may be bought by competitors. Some will go under as we have seen with this recent spate of administrations.
As we draw Q1 to a close, I think the sector will be licking its wounds somewhat and hoping for a better Spring to revive things.
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