16.07.2004

Top Scaffold company close to failure

The receivers, PricewaterhouseCoopers, have been called in by the Bank of Scotland to try and save 500 jobs at struggling scaffolding firm Bow. The group has been facing financial difficulties for some time but the financial difficulties reached the stage two weeks ago where its backers the Royal Bank of Scotland felt it had no choice but to call in the receivers in a bid to rescue the company, which has eight depots around the UK trading as four divisions – southern, northern, north-eastern and Scottish.

Bow Scaffolding, one of the largest scaffolder in the UK, had revenues of around £20 million, and was formed in June 2002 when managing director Michael Bowkett led a Management Buy Out of Mitie’s scaffolding division, Mitie Access, for £4.9 million in cash plus around £6 million of debt. The MBO was financed by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Mitie had purchased Bow in the late 90’s during a period then it was expanding its access businesses.
It seems that Bow had been discounting rates steeply for some time in a bid to keep the scaffold teams busy, maintain utilization and generate enough cash to cover interest and overhead