James Lumb and Will Wright from Interpath were appointed joint administrators to Merit Group Services Limited on 17th November 2025 and to Merit Health Limited and Merit Holdings Limited on 18th November.
The companies have now ceased operations and most of the 340 employees have been made redundant.
Based in Cramlington, Northumberland, Merit is one of the UK鈥檚 leading offsite modular construction specialists, working with customers across the healthcare, life science, education, battery technology, and aerospace industries.
Over recent months, Merit had experienced contractual issues and delays to a number of its major contracts, which in turn had a significant impact on cashflow. With liquidity pressure mounting, Merit Group Services Limited became subject to an unexpected winding up petition, which adversely affected new work awards and resulted in delays to a number of projects, the administrators said
In response, the directors explored options for sale, refinancing and investment but failed to find an alternative to going into administration.
Merit filed a notice of intent to appoint administrators on 15th October.
Merit鈥檚 collapse leaves the building site of a new 拢35m hospital in Berwick, Northumberland, just a few months from completion.
James Lumb, managing director at Interpath and joint administrator, said: 鈥淭he UK construction industry continues to face tremendous headwinds, with rising costs, high interest rates and subdued private sector demand having an impact on larger contracts in particular. Although Merit has developed an outstanding reputation for the quality and innovation of its specialist offsite solutions, these broader challenges proved to be insurmountable.鈥�
He continued: 鈥淲e continue to explore options in order to find a solution that works for Merit鈥檚 customers, employees and creditors. In the meantime, we are prioritising providing support to all those who have been affected by redundancy, including supporting them with claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.鈥�
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