Opus Restructuring was appointed as administrator on 13 June and the sale of HOC (UK) for £50,000 to Coppercast was made two days later, according to a creditors’ report seen by CN.

A prepack is a mechanism to allow a company to be sold as a going concern. A sale is agreed in advance of entering administration and conducted by the administrator.

An Opus spokesman said Coppercast was negotiating with HOC’s clients on continuing the contracts and “if a supplier is crucial to finishing the work they would be in a better position” than other creditors, who would find it hard to recover money owed.

It would be up to clients whether to use Coppercast or another contractor to complete ongoing HOC projects, he added.

Opus’s report explained that Coppercast’s director Gary Ellis is also a director and shareholder of GMSL, in turn the shareholder of HOC (UK)’s parent the HOC Group.

The spokesman said: “There is a connection but this is not a ‘phoenix’ company, it has not been sold back to the directors.”

Mr Ellis could not be contacted.

HOC was formed in 2010 by Hugh O’Connor and is described on its website as “a leading independent specialist design and build contractor delivering high-quality results through lean construction”.

The Opus report showed that HOC’s turnover had increased sharply from £4m in 2010 to £24m in 2014 then more than trebling to £76m in 2015.

It said around 18 months ago the then directors engaged a team to manage the business’s expansion.

The report said that according to Martin Boulton, who became an HOC director in May 2016, the company appeared to have been “burdened” with “excessive overheads and fees” as its turnover increased.

Mr Boulton had found the financial viability of all the firm’s prospects “increasingly precarious”, it noted.

Lender Belvedere Security issued a winding-up order in late May, and between April and June the company was served with 13 statutory demands totalling just over £1m, the report said, adding that administrators have made 61 employees redundant.

HOC’s website stated that in March the company won a £20m residential development at Pages Walk, Bermondsey for O’Callaghan Developments and a £25m job to redevelop the Bedford House and Canterbury House office buildings in Croydon into residential units for developer Criterion Capital.

It is also shown as working on a seven-storey Westin hotel in the City of London, due for completion next year.