150 jobs at risk as Wigan-based rail supplier enters administration …

A Wigan-based supplier of road-rail vehicles for track maintenance on the railway have appointed administrators after running into financial difficulties.

Clare Boardman and Kristian Shuttleworth of Teneo Financial Advisory Limited have been appointed as Joint Administrators of TXM Plant Limited, Equipment and Track Solutions Limited and Bacchus Newco Limited, which managed infrastructure projects from seven depots across England.

The business was part-owned by private equity investor LDC and until recently had been making profits of £4m on turnover of £38.9m.

LDC backed a management buyout of the group, originally known as NDS Plant, from Network Rail, after seeing turnover double from 2013.

The administrator said the business has faced significant challenges in recent months, with customer demand falling in the face of rail industry budget cuts and faced pressure from persistent high inflation and increased interest rates.

The business was servicing loans of £18m for plant and machinery, funded through an asset-based lending arrangement.

Teneo said the company has been exploring multiple options, including raising additional capital, refinancing existing debt, and running a sale process. “Unfortunately, none of these efforts was successful and the Directors have therefore taken the difficult decision to appoint administrators,” a statement said.

Teneo are working with all stakeholders including key customers to investigate the possibility of a sale or, alternatively, facilitate an orderly wind-down of the business, with the retention of c.45 employees to manage this process.

They confirmed that 150 employees are subject to redundancy. The Administrators are communicating with all employees and working closely with the Redundancy Payments Service to support employees in recovering any statutory entitlements to which they may be entitled.

Joint Administrator Kristian Shuttleworth acknowledges that “this is a very difficult time for employees, and we will do all that we can to support them over the coming weeks, including speaking to the Job Centre Rapid Response Unit as a matter of urgency and liaising with the insolvency service to expedite payments due under the Redundancy Payment Service”.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of RMT commented to union members, “I shall be engaging with the RMT Parliamentary Group as the crisis at TXM Plant is not unique but has come about as a direct result of the government underfunding a vital service such as the railways over many years.”

He added: “I have written to Network Rail over this matter and asked the company what steps it is taking to secure such jobs within Britain’s railway and how it is going to ensure that the supply of equipment carried out by TXM Plant will continue not just in the immediate future but also long term.”