Directors of Berry-based building company StrongBuild have offered heart-felt apologies after the company went into voluntary administration on Thursday morning, leaving more than 100 people without a job, and several sub-contractors in debt.
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StrongBuild's Jamie Strong and Chris Francis were understandably emotional about the “devastating” situation and apologised to everyone involved.
“All we can say is the gloves are on, and we are going to sort it out, work with us not against us," Mr Francis said.
“Everyone we work with whether they be staff or subbies or clients, we deeply apologise. This was not something we planned."
About four weeks ago, the company’s bank pulled out as a funding provider, which started the domino effect into Thursday's events.
"The building industry is considered a high risk industry at the moment so across the board I’ve heard and seen banks getting out of the sector," Mr Strong said.
After an external accountant looked over StrongBuild's finances, an out-of-bank lender agreed to come on board with the company, which Mr Strong said was good news.
Unfortunately, a number of unforeseen and damaging events undermined the company’s ability to action the solution.
“Yesterday we realised our fix was no longer a fix and that led us to take the group into voluntary administration," Mr Strong said.
“We are absolutely gutted.”
The company, established in 2001, employees 140 people across the board, 60 of whom work in the Shoalhaven. All of them were made redundant this morning.
“We had staff hugging and crying this morning, and we are going to find a bloody solution, whatever it takes to turn it around,” Mr Francis said.
“The toughest thing in my life was sitting through my wife’s cancer diagnosis. The second toughest was talking to staff this morning and ringing all the clients and subbies."
Mr Strong and Mr Francis said they had received messages from sub-contractors this morning, who were worried about losing their homes or going bankrupt.
"Imagine the torment they are under, it’s wrong on so many levels this has happened,” Mr Strong said.
“I’ve had texts from guys who are owed large amounts of money and yet they've still said they’ve got our backs and letting us know that we can get through it."
StrongBuild has been heading a project at Huntingdale Estate at Berry. As of this morning, sub-contractors were told to leave the site, and work stopped on 27 homes.
“These are people's dream homes and we owe it them to get them finished," Mr Francis said.
“We are not just going to lay down and vanish into the woodwork.”
The pair said they wouldn’t stop until the situation was turned into a positive, and offered their full trust to the administrators.
“We are putting ourselves at the bottom of the heap, we want to make sure everyone else is okay," Mr Francis said.
“We have full trust in the administrators, and we will know where we stand after [an upcoming] creditors meeting."
The two men thanked their staff, clients and sub-contractors for their support and said they would do everything in their power to rectify the situation.
Madeline Crittenden
Madeline Crittenden is a journalist for Fairfax Media at the South Coast Register.
Madeline Crittenden is a journalist for Fairfax Media at the South Coast Register.
