Steel specialist avoids financial hit from ISG collapse
Credit insurance has helped to protect a structural steel firm’s bottom line from the collapse of ISG.
A trading update to the London Stock Exchange by Billington Holdings plc this morning (11 December) revealed its credit insurer had already made an interim settlement on a claim for ISG work.
The update said: “Billington has historically traded with various ISG trading entities, delivering a number of high-profile projects. The group has received an interim payment from its credit insurer and subject to formal acceptance by the insurer of an independent assessment of the remaining claim.”
It added: “Billington is expected to be materially restricted to the excess on the group’s credit insurance. At the time of administration, all contracts with ISG, and its trading subsidiaries, were substantially complete.”
ISG went into administration in September and firms owed money have been told there is little prospect of getting it back.
Billington warned in September 2023 that it had been impacted by delays with an ISG job to build a £700m film studio.
At the time, chief executive Mark Smith said there had been difficulties in securing credit insurance on customers amid high levels of construction insolvency.
“In uncertain times, insurers are as nervous as anybody, and they seek to mitigate their risk by reducing the number of contracts they underwrite,” he remarked.
In this morning’s trading update, Billington said the group had delivered strong performance across all its business units in the first half of the year – and that had continued into the autumn.
It said pre-tax profit would beat industry analyst forecasts when the firm releases its full-year financials for the 2024 calendar year next April.
Last year, the firm reported a pre-tax profit of £13.4m from turnover of £121.5m. This resulted in a fourth-place ranking in this year’s CN Specialists Index for steel contractors.
In the trading update, Billington described a strong order book with multiple “significant, good quality contracts” secured for 2025 and into 2026, “particularly in sectors that require more complex solutions such as energy from waste, high-tech manufacturing and data centres” .
Smith said: “While we remain mindful of the widely publicised, challenging market conditions, I am optimistic that Billington will continue to perform robustly in 2025 and beyond.”
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