The tactic, which is legal, is often justified by supporters who argue it can save jobs and help secure some returns for creditors \u2013 although HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) estimates it costs the UK taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds a year.<\/p>\n
Premier Group Recruitment went into administration in September 2025 owing \u00a32.9m<\/a>, including \u00a3647,000 to HMRC, which had begun enforcement proceedings against the company.<\/p>\n The recruiter\u2019s assets were acquired three days later by a new company, PGGBR Ltd, founded by Andrew Woosnam, Premier\u2019s 99% shareholder, who made an initial \u00a310,000 payment and promised to transfer a further \u00a3600,000 via monthly \u00a325,000 instalments over the following two years.<\/p>\n Despite a seemingly positive start for the new business \u2013 which offered its consultants an \u201call expenses paid\u201d trip to Las Vegas for hitting their targets<\/a> \u2013 the company quickly fell behind with its promised repayments, causing the administrators to file an update<\/a> on its struggles with Companies House in March.<\/p>\n On Sunday, filings at Companies House said PGGBR had appointed a voluntary liquidator<\/a>.<\/p>\n Woosnam, who had received a \u00a31.2m director\u2019s loan from the defunct Premier and had taken dividends out of the company totalling almost \u00a32m since 2022, is also understood to have made a series of redundancies at the new business in July that industry sources said equated to at least half his staff. The company\u2019s website, which now appears to have been taken down, listed a management team of 12 people.<\/p>\n Sources with knowledge of the job losses also suggested that those affected had not been paid and that Woosnam was planning to launch another new company to take his recruitment business forward.<\/p>\n Companies House records show that in June the businessman changed the name of a business he founded a year ago from PGUSA to PGREC.<\/p>\n The problems at Premier chime with long-running questions concerning the efficacy of allowing connected parties to buy back their bust businesses by promising future payments \u2013 deferred considerations, in the industry jargon.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Research has suggested that poorer outcomes tend to occur in insolvencies where the assets are acquired by connected parties paying via future instalments.<\/p>\n For example, research by the University of Wolverhampton, for the UK government\u2019s 2014 Graham review<\/a>, concluded: \u201cThe failure rate of a connected party sale increases from 15% of all cases without deferred consideration to 37% when deferred consideration is introduced. Generally, when deferred consideration is present, whether or not a connected sale is also present, the failure rate rises considerably.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788114263_692_500.jpg\")
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