AROUND 500 workers have been made redundant as accountants fight over whether a troubled construction company and civil engineering firm might be saved.
WJ Harte Construction and RJT Pennant, which sent 722 people home from work on Monday, will either be placed into administration with the possibility of saving parts of the business and some jobs, or placed into liquidation.
Business advisers PKF have been appointed joint interim managers of both firms and wants to place them into administration. But it says a rival firm has lodged a petition, which will be heard today, to become the liquidators of the companies. If successful, the businesses would shut, with any assets being sold off to pay creditors first.
PKF said that if the com-panies were placed into administration, 200 staff would be recalled to carry out outstanding work, and the firm would be put up for sale.
WJ Harte, which has been carrying out civil engineering and groundworks projects throughout Scotland for almost 40 years, employed 600, while RJT Pennant had a staff of around 122.
"We are in a holding position, because another accountancy firm has been trying to get the work ahead of PKF," said a PKF spokesman. "It is quite an unusual thing to happen.
"So rather than hold off, a judge has decided to appoint a joint interim manager, until he makes a decision on tomorrow's petition.
"If it goes into administration, the company will be operational and there will be an attempt to save as much as possible."
PKF said the move has not affected another Harte Con-struction Group firm, RJT Excavations.
The Herald revealed on Tuesday that Harte had approached a number of firms specialising in insolvency.
Anne Buchanan, joint interim manager of the Harte Group and corporate recovery partner with PKF, said: "It is unfortunate that this company [Harte], which has been around for so long and traded profitably for much of that time, should be closed down due to a number of factors. The long-term effect of the closure of a business like this may have a serious impact on the recovery of the construction sector."
She said that Harte was a "long established, highly regarded firm" which had "experienced a severe reduction in turnover over the last few years as well as considerable levels of bad debt from creditors who themselves have gone bust".
She added: "Despite shedding jobs over the last few years to cope with this decline in turn-over the firm is now unable to continue trading."
It is understood creditors were first made aware that the company was in a dire financial situation last Friday morning but the expectation was there would be an injection of capital from shareholders. But by the close of play it became clear this would not materialise.
In March, WJ Harte announced a 55% slump in profits to £159,000 in the year to May 31, 2010, following "the worst weather ever reported during January and February 2010".
Heavy snow forced the civil engineering company – which lists Bellway, Dawn Homes and Taylor Wimpey among its clients – to close most of its sites, adding to the recession's effects on the construction industry.
Accounts showed turnover from operations rose by 2.5% to £43 million, despite the fall in pre-tax profit.
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