Mark Group blames government cutbacks for closure

Managers at the company had been attempting to buy the firm from its parent SunEdison, in a last-ditch attempt to save the business, but were unable to put a deal together.

A statement from the company explained that the company had already been in the process of a turnaround plan but government policy changes only announced recently have meant that their strategy of focusing on solar PV is no longer viable.

A statement on the company’s website confirmed Deloitte LLP has been appointed as administrators and all appointments for surveys and installations undertaken by the company’s solar arm have been cancelled. More than 900 of its staff have now been made redundant.

Chris Farrington, one of the company’s administrators, said that the company had “sustained heavy losses” as a result of “structural changes in its core markets”.

“The ongoing losses of the business meant (administration) was our only option”, a Mark Group statement said. “As a result, we have made a decision to sell Mark Group to its managers, who have informed us that in light of the elimination of the solar PV market they will re-focus on energy efficiency”. But earlier in the week, the energy minister, Andrea Leadsom, was reported to have privately said during a debate on the fringes of the conference that the cuts to renewable subsidies had harmed investor confidence.

The company employs about 1,100 people, of which about 90 percent were eliminated because of financial fallout.

Ministers maintain the proposed subsidy cuts are necessary to avoid upward pressure on energy bills, given officials fear the renewables industry is on track to exceed the Treasury’s clean energy subsidy spending cap for 2020.

A new report on Wednesday from Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that the price of solar and other renewables is falling fast, while fossil fuel costs are going up. “Prospective purchasers are encouraged to get in contact as soon as possible”.

About 930 employees at Mark Group, a Leicester-based solar energy and home insulation company that has been in business since 1974, were told that they had lost their jobs only hours before administrators at Deloitte were called in.

He added that the onus was now on the government to deliver on its promise to fill the current “policy vacuum”.

Commenting on the latest development, Greenpeace United Kingdom chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said: “For all his rhetoric about building, it’s not scaffolding George Osborne is bringing to Britain’s clean energy sector but a wrecking ball”.