Fast-growing concrete frame specialist JRL Group has bought failed Lakesmere Group’s McMullen Façades business from administrators.
Negotiations to buy the profitable £30m turnover cladding company were concluded yesterday after McMullen followed its parent group into administration on Monday due to cashflow problems.
The JRL Group has been steadily diversifying from its primary reinforced concrete frames business J Reddington in recent years.
Established over two decades ago, the £300m turnover JRL group includes more than 10 businesses offering anything from specialist trades and crane hire to main contracting.
A JRL Group spokesman said: “The acquisition of McMullen Façades gives us a unique capability to offer a “structure and envelope” package.
“This will give clients a single point of contact to get a watertight building allowing savings on preliminaries, improved coordination, better programme and risk management benefits.”
The deal is expected to save the jobs of most of the 270 staff at McMullen, mainly operating out of the Northern Ireland factory in Portadown and its head office in Winchester.
It is the second time the cladding business founded by Ted McMullen has been saved from administrators.
Lakesmere bought the firm, then called McMullen Architectural Systems, from administrators back in 2012.
McMullen is presently working on an £18m cladding contract for the high-rise Shell Centre scheme in London and a landmark 42-storey residential development for Canary Wharf Contractors in London Docklands.
It is also working alongside main contractor Laing O’Rourke to deliver a £11m façade contract for The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust’s new specialist hospital in Liverpool.
Original link - Construction Enquirer
