{"id":25179,"date":"2020-12-12T07:46:51","date_gmt":"2020-12-12T07:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=25179"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:22:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:22:58","slug":"fibre-engineering-firm-lite-access-uk-calls-in-the-administrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/12\/fibre-engineering-firm-lite-access-uk-calls-in-the-administrators.html","title":{"rendered":"Fibre Engineering Firm Lite Access UK Calls in the Administrators UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK division of civil engineering firm Lite Access Technologies<\/a>, which specialises in deploying fibre optic (e.g. FTTP<\/a>) broadband infrastructure (they’ve won contracts with Cityfibre<\/a>, Gigaclear<\/a> etc.), has filed a notice of intent to appoint an administrator after they suffered “challenges<\/em>” related to their “ongoing builds<\/em>” and COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Administration often occurs when a company, such as one that is in financial difficulty, is put into the hands of an administrator. The administrator then decides whether or not they can help the company to continue running or sell it off for a good price. Generally, this isn’t something you’d think would happen to a company like Lite Access<\/strong> in a rapidly growing fibre market like the UK, but it has.<\/p>\n

The problems first began to become apparent at the end of last month, when Lite Access announced that they had “temporarily suspended UK operations<\/em>” due to the “ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to become worse, along with challenges related to its ongoing builds<\/em>.” Despite this, other civil engineering firms seem to now be coping well, although quite a bit of adaptation was required during the first lockdown in March.<\/p>\n

Last month the company said they were “unable to meet targets with the continuing conditions<\/em>” and had opted for a temporary suspension in order to give time for a consultation with stakeholders to “optimize both its current operations and existing contracts in a COVID-19 environment.<\/em>” A more positive update followed on 1st December 2020, which announced that the company “will resume partial UK operations effective immediately<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Lite Access has now issued another statement, which confirms that they have “elected to file a notice of intent to appoint an administrator<\/em>“. The purpose of this filing is to “create a moratorium over the Company for a period of 10 days in order to protect the assets of Lite Access UK<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Carlo Shimoon, President & CEO of Lite Access, said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We plan to use our core team members to continue advanced discussions with a number of potential UK customers and aggressively pursue other attractive opportunities in the UK FTTP<\/a> market. Despite these recent developments, the UK FTTP<\/a> market remains incredibly attractive as the government is working with industry to target a minimum of 85% gigabit capable coverage by 2025 and seeks to accelerate rollout further to get as close to 100% as possible in numerous cities and towns across the UK.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The situation will come as a blow to both the company, as well as those that have been working with them. On top of that it follows shortly after a string of recent contract wins, which for example saw them hoover up fibre optic rollout contracts with Cityfibre<\/a> in Cambridge, Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds (they’ve also worked with various other broadband and telecoms firms, such as Gigaclear<\/a> and Openreach<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Some of our sources within the industry have confirmed that Lite Access has not been performing at the top of their game and appear to have lost some support. For example, Cityfibre<\/a> are no longer working with them. A number of companies used by Lite Access in Lowestoft have also contacted us to complain of being left with unpaid bills, such as Lowestoft Car Hire<\/strong>, which claims to have been left \u00a315,000 out of pocket.<\/p>\n

We had been in the process of investigating all this when the announcement of their intent to appoint an administrator dropped into our inbox. Shares in Lite Access have been hit hard.<\/p>\n

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