Wrekin's £40m debts include £25m pension shortfall

Wrekin Construction’s £25m pension fund deficit took the total owed to the failed company’s 1,000 creditors to more than £40m.

Ian Best, administrator with accountancy group Ernst & Young, told creditors that about £2m of Wrekin’s cash was invested in other companies in the Tamar Group.

Along with Wrekin, they are all owned by David Unwin.

Three of those companies went into administration last month.

Best told Wrekin’s creditors at their meeting last week: “The books and records are not of the highest standard and that will be part of the considerations in our ongoing duty to report on the directors’ conduct.

“Choosing my words very carefully, there are some transactions that have caused the administrators concerns and those transactions are being pursued.

“It is pursuing the funds which were either invested or transferred to other companies which is the main concern at the moment. Two related companies are likely to go into liquidation tomorrow.”

The three companies that received the £2m cash transfer from Wrekin were Kingstone Homes, Toft Johnson and Watson Dallas Windows, said Best.

Watson Dallas Windows Solutions and Toft Johnson went into administration last month, he told creditors.

He confirmed that the two other companies set to go into liquidation were Equatrek UK and Britannia Management Services.

David Unwin bought Wrekin Construction two years ago. At the time Unwin said that he had “invested £11m” and had poured a further sum into the pension fund.

But the £11m wasn’t cash – it turned out to be a close-to-worthless wannabe lump of rock with a forged valuation which creditors were told looked like a “cut and paste” compilation from a website.

Equatrek UK might have run aground but Company House records show that six weeks ago a new company called Equatrek Group was formed by David Unwin.

As with his other trading enterprises, Unwin has based its registered office in Tamar House, Lows Lane, Stanton-by-Dale which is near Ilkeston in Derbyshire.