A Court Wound Up a 28-Site Recycling Firm a Year Ago. Its 607 Redundancies Only Surfaced in September.
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
In short. A High Court winding-up order was made against Unimetals Recycling (UK) Ltd, a Stratford-upon-Avon headquartered metals recycler with close to 30 sites nationally, on 25 November 2025, an official Insolvency Service notice confirms [1]. The Official Receiver was appointed liquidator and disclaimed the company's sites the same day, triggering 607 redundancies, a figure reported in press coverage that only appeared on 29 September 2026, almost ten months after the order [2]. Graded REPORTED, status departed.
The event and the discovery are two different dates
Most of what this ledger logs is news within hours or days of happening. This one is not. Unimetals Recycling (UK) Ltd was wound up by the High Court on 25 November 2025, and the Official Receiver, now its liquidator, disclaimed the company's sites that same day, which is what actually ends a workforce's employment in this kind of proceeding, not a later formality [1]. The company owed over GBP85.1m to creditors, with Sims Group Holdings, which sold Unimetals the business in the first place in 2024, owed GBP62.8m of that as the largest single creditor [2].
None of that reached press coverage with a jobs figure attached until 29 September 2026. A company spokesperson's statement, carried in that coverage, reads: "we recognise how distressing this news will be for everyone connected to Unimetals Recycling (UK) Ltd, particularly our employees who have worked tirelessly over the last year since we acquired it from Sims to try to turn this business around" [2]. That quote describes a year of trying, which lines up with the 2024 acquisition date, not with when the public found out it had failed.
607 people, close to 30 sites, one notice
The scale here is unusual for a backfilled story on this ledger. 607 redundancies across a nationwide network of close to 30 sites is a bigger single loss than most announcements this site covers in real time, let alone one that sat unreported in any figure-bearing press coverage for the best part of a year [2]. The Insolvency Service's own notice confirms the winding-up order and the Official Receiver's appointment as liquidator, which is as official as a company failure gets, but it does not itself state a headcount [1]; the 607 figure comes from press reporting of the Official Receiver's own statement, the same sourcing pattern already logged for VMS Fleet Management and Torsion Construction on this ledger.
No cause beyond financial difficulty following the 2024 acquisition is given anywhere in the reporting checked for this piece. AI is not cited.
How the ledger logs it
Graded REPORTED: an official government Insolvency Service notice confirms the winding-up order and liquidator appointment, meeting this ledger's highest sourcing bar for the event itself, with the 607 headcount figure sourced to press coverage of the Official Receiver's own statement. Status departed: the redundancies took effect immediately when the sites were disclaimed, not a pending consultation. This is the third backfilled discovery gap logged on this ledger inside two weeks, after Agetur and Merit Holdings, each surfaced only by deliberately sweeping the Gazette and official notices rather than daily news search.
Sources
- GOV.UK (Insolvency Service), "Unimetals Recycling (UK) Ltd: winding-up order made," 25 November 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/unimetals-recycling-uk-ltd-winding-up-order-made
- Brit Brief, "UK recycling firm Unimetals enters liquidation, 607 jobs lost," 29 September 2026. https://britbrief.co.uk/crime/prisons/recycling-firm-unimetals-liquidation-costs-607-jobs.html