C & G Concrete Ltd no longer exists
Please see below for the cause of insolvency.


C & G Concrete Ltd was founded in 1958.

On Thursday 12th May 2011 the London Gazette advertised a Winding Up Petition from Castle Cement Ltd (Hanson Cement) against C & G Concrete Ltd, which was a large user of cement. At that time, Hanson Group was a 23.5% shareholder in my family firm C & G, which made their action in serving a Winding up Petition incomprehensible.

Hanson has said it had not intended to advertise their Winding Up Petition, and had instructed that it not be advertised.
Hanson has said it was as surprised as C & G when it was discovered the next day (Friday 13th May) that the advertisement had been published by London Gazette.

The Board of C & G, which included two senior Hanson appointees, requested its banker to place C & G into insolvency protection by appointing Administrators, which was done.

The insolvency of C & G resulted from the cessation of normal trade credit because of the London Gazette’s accepted error in printing the advertisement. C & G ceased to accept any deliveries of goods supplied on credit shortly after learning that the advertisement had been published.

C & G had good stocks of the key consumables, fuel and cement. It had its own large stock of sand and gravel aggregates at its own quarry which continued to operate. Thus C & G was able to continue to trade in the normal way without redundancies, under the direction of the Administrators.

The Administrators set about opening their new credit accounts for supplies, so the business could continue as a going concern into the future. The existing C & G team continued seeking new business and supplying customers, who were quite remarkably supportive. At the time, C & G held a Lincolnshire market share of 38-40% for ready mixed concrete, a near 100% market share of trowel ready mortar, and a large market share of aggregates.

Traditionally, Hanson supplied the southern plants of C & G with cement from Ketton, whilst Cemex supplied the northern plants from South Ferriby, South Humberside.

Unexpectedly, Hanson Cement declined to supply cement to the Administrators, as did Cemex Cement. Normally it is considered that to supply goods and services to a Administrator is a risk fee undertaking. These actions by Hanson and Cemex were incomprehensible.

C & G was by now in danger of running out of stocks of cement, which was needed at the rate of 150 – 200 tonnes per working day. Had C & G run out of cement:

By good fortune, cement supplies became available to the Administrators at the last minute, from Aggregate Industries, many thanks to them and their chief Colin Jenkins. These supplies were better value than cement from the previous suppliers Hanson Cement and Cemex Cement.

On 27th July 2011 the trade and assets of C & G were acquired from the Administrators by Breedon Aggregates Ltd. From the Breedon published accounts, they paid about £11 million, and seem very pleased. They took on all C & G employees under the TUPE rules.

The Administrators have to date paid out creditors at the rate of c 65 pence in the pound, and more is promised.

The Competition Commission announced in May 2013 that Hanson Group, Cemex and Tarmac-Lafarge cement operations have been provisionally found to have had an Adverse Effect on Competition (very roughly approximating to a “cartel”). Strikingly, despite low demand for cement over recent years, prices and profitability for the GB producers have still increased.

The reader is invited to consider: The reader is invited to draw his or her own conclusions from the above events.

The insolvency of F.H. Gilman & Co. resulted from the knock-on effects of the C & G insolvency.






28/07/2011