Dawnus was a British construction company. Established in 2001 the company grew rapidly in the early 2000s but collapsed into administration in 2019. The company had operations in the United Kingdom and West Africa.

History

Dawnus was founded as a contractor in 2001 and had its headquarters at

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

, Wales. The company name is

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for "gifted". Its turnover grew rapidly, reaching £2 million in 2002, £8 million in 2003, £16.5 million in 2004, £31 million in 2005, £43 million in 2006 and £64 million in 2007. Afterwards turnover stabilised at around £60-70 million. Changes in its board of directors led to further growth with the company achieving a turnover of £135 million in 2011, peaking at £176 million in 2012. During this period the company was named the ''

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'' Business of the Year and appeared in the ''

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'' Profit Track 100. In 2014 the company stated that almost half of its work was carried out overseas, through its subsidiary Dawnus International Ltd. It had a particularly large presence in West Africa providing infrastructure for mining operations; at this point it employed 250 expatriates and 1,000 locals in Sierra Leone. These works were affected by the

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, which resulted in losses of around £15 million. In 2017 Dawnus reported losses on £1.4 million in its annual accounts and had no cash on hand. This reflected losses due to insolvent clients, legal costs and a dispute over a £7 million hotel contract in

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

, Dorset. Dawnus had incurred a 30-week delay in that contract when a high-voltage power cable was struck during piling works due to incorrect utilities drawings. In November 2018 the company bought back and cancelled 12,000 shares owned by its directors, a move that was investigated following the company's collapse. In December 2018 Dawnus sought fresh investment or a sale of the business. The company received interest from 23 potential investors and 52 buyers but only two of these made offers, one withdrawing soon afterwards and the remaining party withdrawing after carrying out

due diligence Due diligence is the investigation or exercise of care that a reasonable business or person is normally expected to take before entering into an agreement or contract with another party or an act with a certain standard of care. It can be a l ...

. Projects built by Dawnus include the £10 million Kingston College Creative Industries Centre (2015), refurbishment of the A548 Foryd Bridge in

Rhyl Rhyl (; cy, Y Rhyl, ) is a seaside town and community (Wales), community in Denbighshire, Wales. The town lies within the Historic counties of Wales, historic boundaries of Flintshire (historic), Flintshire, on the north-east coast of Wales at ...

(2015) and construction of the Tower Road Bridge at

Alfred Dock Alfred Dock is a dock at Birkenhead, Merseyside, England. The dock covers an area of and provides access to the Great Float from the River Mersey. History In 1856, J. B. Hartley produced plans for alternative river access to the Great Flo ...

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(2018).

Collapse

Following further losses from a flood defence contract in

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and in a Welsh government schools construction programme, Dawnus collapsed into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

in March 2019. Works immediately ceased on their projects from 12 March, which led to some traffic issues such as a roads scheme in Manchester where four excavators and a lorry were left blocking the highway. Other projects abandoned included three schools in

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, Wales. At the time of its collapse Dawnus owed around £70 million in unsecured debt, including £40.4 million to trade creditors, £5 million to employees and £3 million to

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. A further £10 million was owed to secured creditors including around £1.5 million to the Welsh government and £1.3 million to

Lloyds Bank Lloyds Bank plc is a British retail banking, retail and commercial bank with branches across England and Wales. It has traditionally been considered one of the "Big Four (banking), Big Four" clearing house (finance), clearing banks. Lloyds B ...

. The Welsh Government claim stemmed from the outstanding capital on a £3.5 million loan it had made in 2016 to assist the company with cashflow problems. The administrators,

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, determined that Dawnus had around £16 million in assets at the time of its collapse and a further £21 million owed to them by debtors. While payments were made to the secured creditors by May 2020 the administrators did not anticipate being able to make any payments to unsecured creditors. Some unsecured creditors recouped money by stealing equipment belonging to Dawnus, removing trackers and disrupting traffic in the process. The collapse of Dawnus led to the loss of 700 jobs.

Ken Skates Kenneth Christian Skates MS (born 2 April 1976) is a Welsh Labour politician. Skates has represented the constituency of Clwyd South in the Senedd since the election of 2011. He is an alumnus of the University of Cambridge, and worked as a j ...

, the Welsh Government's Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales, stated that about 455 Welsh suppliers had been affected by the company's collapse and that around £6m was owed to businesses in its

supply chain In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, acti ...

.Green, W.
Fall of 'Welsh Carillion'
''Supply Management'' magazine, April 2019, page 7, accessed 31 March 2023 The collapse, which has been compared with the collapse of construction business Carillion plc in 2018, led to calls for the Welsh government to extend its use of project bank accounts (whereby funds paid by the client are ringfenced and not given directly to the main contractor) to projects below the £2 million threshold adopted in 2018.

References

{{Construction industry in the United Kingdom Construction and civil engineering companies established in 2001 Construction and civil engineering companies disestablished in 2019 Companies based in Swansea British companies established in 2001 British companies disestablished in 2019 Companies that have entered administration in the United Kingdom