Last updated 16th February 2023
Tolent Plc
Tolent was reported to have gone into administration with 313 jobs losses on 13th February 2023 with the appointment of administrators Interpath Advisory to wind up the group and its subsidiaries in the light of financial difficulties and significant losses on its £85.5m Milburngate hotel project in Durham.
Formed in Tyneside in 1983, Tolent Construction – the main subsidiary – carries out all types of building and civils work from offices in Tyne & Wear and Stockton-on-Tees. The firm has a large directly-employed workforce of around 470 and a significant share of its turnover is repeat business.
The group’s key services cover development, retrofit and decarbonization, civil engineering, construction and asbestos removal. Project sizes range from £5,000 to £90 million.
In recent years, the company has de-listed from the Aim junior stock market, saying the benefits did not justify the costs and management time involved. The firm has also launched a joint venture and an acquisition, Gentoo Tolent (now Tolent Living) and Gentoo Construction (now Tolent Solutions), which have prospered in the social and private housing markets. It has also wound up its southern region business; a move which heavily impacted its results and left it nursing a loss for 2020.
In Newcastle, the group has been involved with a series of landmark projects in the city including Sage HQ, Newcastle City Library, Wellbar Central and a development at Hadrian’s Tower.
The group has faced turbulent times recently. After a difficult year in 2020, Covid took a heavy toll on the company and it swung into the red with a loss of £4 million in 2021 partly due to a bad debt. The chief operating officer and financial director both left the business in 2021.
However under new chief executive Paul Webster and chief financial officer Mark Overton the business has been restructured with management and process changes made to reduce risk and steer a return to profitability. The group’s finances have also been shored up with a £3.7 million rights issue in May 2022.
Today, the group”s focus is to secure more work from public sector and housing association clients and its secured order book at the start of 2022 stood at £106 million.
In summer 2022 non-executive chairman Craig Anderson said the business was trading profitably with a positive cash flow. Turnover is expected to fall in 2022 reflecting measures to cut risk but the group appears to have made an encouraging start to 2023 with various contract wins.
Financials
To view the financials for Tolent Plc, visit Companies House and use Company ID 03819314.
Covid-related costs and project delays along with a significant bad debt s took a heavy toll on Tolent in the year to December 2021. Turnover rose to 197.94 million in 2021 from 184.9 million previously but the group reported an operating loss on continuing operations of £4.05 million, compared to a profit of £4.6 million previously. The group reported a pre-tax loss of £4.4 million, compared to a loss of £8.5 in 2021, when it was heavily impacted by redundancy costs. At the year-end of 2021, the group had cash of £10.5 million, down from £15.5 million and borrowings of £3.93 million, linked to properties. The company’s financial position was bolstered by an increase in its asset-based lending facility to £12.9 secured in May 2022.
Operations
Tolent operates across a wide range of sectors including industrial, commercial, petrochemical, specialist fit-out, civils, the public and health sectors, social, domestic housing and property development. Contract values range from under £1 million to £90 million.
Over 2021 a major mixed used scheme at Milburngate in Durham generated work worth £40 million for the group.
In early 2023, work was getting underway on the Vaux housing scheme in Sunderland which will eventually involve 1000 homes and where Tolent is building the frames of the first phase of 132 homes. It is the first of four major housing schemes planned at Riverside Sunderland. Meanwhile in early 2023, Tolent completed its first social housing scheme in Yorkshire at Batley.
Elsewhere in Sunderland, in autumn 2022 Tolent won the contract to design and build the Housing Innovation and Construction Skills Academy, a £15 million facility to build a skills base to upgrade the city”s homes” stock.
In the commercial sector, Tolent is progressing an £8.7 million office scheme in Newcastle, the Pattenshop redevelopment, involving a Grade II listed building and remodelling and renovation work across a 3000 sq m site to create business and exhibition space.
In the health sector, talent was working on a £3 million critical care unit at South Tyneside district hospital where work is set to continue until the end of this year. Also in the region toilet recently completed projects at the Royal Victoria Infirmary freeman hospital and Nightingale North East.
Elsewhere, Tolent has a place on the Homes and Communities Agency’s (HCA) Delivery Partner Panel 3; a framework where the company is on the North East Yorkshire & Humber lot which is set to deliver work worth over £1.6bn over four years.
Frameworks where the group has a place also include Thirteen Housing Group Contractors Framework (£50m); The Cutting Edge Framework (£30m-£36m); Places for People Contractors Framework (£60m) and Broadacres Capital Works Framework (£79m).
Glenigan Data
Data from Glenigan suggests Tolent is maintaining a healthy workload in the opening months of 2023. It shows that Tolent is the main contractor on a £5 million scheme to build 63 assisted living flats in Leeds at Hunslett Hall Rd where work is set to run until spring 2024 (Project ID 19428907). Glenigan data also shows that Tolent Living is the main contractor on the £31 million Vaux Homes scheme in Sunderland where phase one involves 138 ultra-modern homes at the Vaux Brewery Site where work is underway and set to continue until late spring 2024 (Project ID 20417878).
Conclusion: Benefitting from strong roots in the North East and a large direct workforce
After some difficult times brought on by Covid, bad debts and issues in closing its southern region, brighter times seem to be in prospect for Tolent and the outlook across the group”s core markets remains positive. Although it has a smaller order book, Tolent has a good spread of sector interests together with a broad client base as well as strong roots in the North East which should enable it to prosper. As well as being more selective, the group”s significant directly-employed workforce should help it to avoid skills shortages and benefit operating margins. Meanwhile, the prospect of more infrastructure spending in the North East in the cause of ”levelling up” bodes well for the group.
Winning work with Tolent Construction
Tolent has a focus on quality, value for money and providing services in a non-adversarial manner. It has full accreditation for its Quality Management System to ISO: 90001.
The group has a database of over 3,000 partners and a section on its website www.tolent.co.uk provides a form for interest suppliers to contact the group.
Contacts:
In Tyneside, at the head office Jason Hodgson is Bid Manager
Tel: 0191 4870505
Email: jhodgson@tolent.co.uk
In Stockton-on Tees, Teeside, Gordon Brown is Senior Estimator
Tel: 01642 308005
Email: gbrown@tolent.co.uk
In Leeds, Marek Lipinski is Regional Estimating Manager
Tel: 0113 232 1510
Email: mlipinski@tolent.co.uk