One of the largest construction groups operating in the Bristol area has collapsed into administration, with its office on the city’s outskirts closed down and its employees facing redundancy.
ISG, which has been responsible for some of the largest building projects around Bristol for more than a decade, ceased trading today. 
Accountancy group EY was this afternoon appointed administrators and confirmed most of ISG’s 2,400 employees would lose their jobs with immediate effect.
ISG’s regional office at Stoke Gifford did not open this morning as reports began circulating that the business, the UK’s sixth biggest construction contractor by turnover with revenue of £2.2bn, was on the brink of going bust.
It is the biggest construction industry company administration since 2018 when Carillion, then the country’s second-largest contractor, failed owing suppliers £7bn.
London-headquartered ISG is involved in 69 live central government schemes worth more than £1bn, including a number of prison upgrades as well as projects for the Department for Work and Pensions and school buildings.
EY this afternoon said ISG had been trying to find a buyer but had not been able to secure a suitable rescue deal.
A potential buyer – understood to be investment firm Antipodean Holdings “could not, despite repeated requests of them to do so, adequately demonstrate that they had the funding needed to recapitalise the business and keep it solvent”, EY said.
“Due to current market conditions, an alternative sale or additional funding could not be secured.”
ISG moved into its Bristol office in 2007 following its £12.5m of long-standing South West construction group C H Pearce and Sons.
Since then it has been one of the most active contractors in the region – in Bristol alone it has been responsible for projects worth many millions of pounds, including UWE Bristol’s Business School, construction work at Bristol Airport and the recent £12m expansion of the city’s Bottle Yard film and TV studios as well as a number of Tesco Express stores and the M&S outlet at Longwell Green.
