Most of the 135 staff who worked for Sunderland's SE-TEK have been made redundant following the firm's collapse.
The manufacturer of conveyor systems for the mining industry called in administrators recently following a funding hole left by the withdrawal of a prospective investor. It means SE-TEK - which was only launched last summer and reportedly had been performing well - has closed up its 200,000 sqft base in Southwick.
No rescue buyer was found for the business, despite a serious of substantial new business wins which saw it outperform expectations. Administrators from FRP's Newcastle office said the door was still open to offers that could see the business restart.
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SE-TEK was set up only last year following the management buyout of Komatsu Mining’s UK business. Since then management had diversified the type of work it delivered creating components for conveyor systems as well as heavy fabrication work for customers in the mining, tunnelling, construction and aggregates sectors.
The team included CEO Giles Richell, along with a senior management team of four others, three of whom were employees of Komatsu. At the time of last year's launch there had been plans to hire more staff and expand into new geographical markets, building on the operation's international reputation. In late 2021 the firm had tapped into the Government's Kickstarter scheme in order to hire 20 young people.
Allan Kelly, partner at FRP and joint administrator of SE-TEK Limited, said: “SE-TEK was growing quickly and the management team was confident in taking the business forward independently. However, following the withdrawal of a potential investor, the business faced significant financial challenges. Despite efforts to find a new investor or trade buyer, it was not possible to keep the business trading and, regrettably, SE-TEK has now ceased trading
“We are in discussions with potential interested parties and are also progressing an asset sale but still welcome any offers to restart operations. Our team on site is continuing to support the former employees in making claims to the Redundancy Payments Service during this challenging period.”
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