£3m payment, boss has new firm – so what is going on at Cardy?

The city’s biggest building firm has remained silent as details emerge of events leading up to shock news it had filed for administration.

This as a boss at Cardy Construction Limited was starting a new venture in the industry a little over a week before word spread of his company’s woes, the Gazette can reveal.

And another company in the Cardy fold was splashing out £3 million for the freehold on a coastal site in the run-up to the reported troubles of Cardy Construction Limited, it has emerged.

Despite repeated offers, direc- tors at the firm have refused to speak out.

Cardy Construction Limited revealed its intent to appoint administrators last month, sending shockwaves through the sector as subcontractors and suppliers faced a battle to recover money owed.

Nine days earlier, Christopher Gremo, one of its directors, was named as the owner of a newly incorporated developer, CSL (Littlebourne) Limited, described on the Companies House website as focused on the “development of building projects”.

The Insolvency Service says the owners, directors and employees of insolvent companies are free to set up new firms to carry out a similar business so long as they are not personally bankrupt or disqualified from doing so – a process known as phoenixing.

When approached for comment, Mr Gremo suggested the company may make a statement in due course.

Cardy Construction’s demise came as a shock to many.

It boosted turnover by more than £25 million to £67.6 million in the year to March 2015, helped by contracts with Rolls-royce, BMW and Johnson and Johnson.

In its latest accounts, it said it had an order book worth £60 million, including projects to build a 539-room student accommodation in Rhodaus Town, Canterbury, and 12 townhouses in the city’s Pound Lane.

However, Cardy Construction Limited is part of the wider Cardy Group Holdings Limited, which has not filed for administration and is clear to continue new business ventures.

Both are run by the same quartet of directors – Stuart Gremo, his son Christopher Gremo, Lee Johnson and Michael Stannard.

It emerged this week that a £3m payment was handed to Thanet District Council by Cardy Ramsgate less than a week before Cardy Construction Limited filed for administration.

The payment, made by the Pleasurama developers, was made to the council for the freehold of the site and the development of the Royal Sands project.

Thanet council says the payment was received on July 20.

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Cardy Construction has been busy in the city; left at the former Barratt’s showroom in Pound Lane and, centre, the Rhodaus Town site

Cardy managing director Stuart Gremo

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