UKCloud placed into compulsory liquidation

Troubled provider to the UK public sector is wound down

UKCloud, a major supplier of services to the UK public sector, has been placed into compulsory liquidation.

The company announced on Tuesday in a brief notice on its website that UKCloud Limited and its parent Virtual Infrastructure Group Limited were to be wound up.

"On 25 October 2022, the Companies were placed into Liquidation with the Official Receiver appointed as Liquidator and J Robinson and A M Hudson simultaneously appointed as Special Managers to manage the liquidation process on behalf of the Official Receiver," the notice says.

A notice on GOV.UK on Tuesday said "The Official Receiver will wind-down the affairs of Virtual Infrastructure Group Limited and UKCloud Limited in an orderly manner", adding that it "also has a duty to investigate the cause of the companies' insolvency and the conduct of current and former directors."

Headquartered in Farnborough, UKCloud had contracts with the NHS, the Ministry of Defence, local and central government and private businesses, in areas such as data centre design and management, professional services, disaster recovery, security and cloud services. The company's partnerships included QinetiQ, Dell, Cisco, Oracle, Red Hat, Microsoft Azure and Ark Data Centres.

The company has been in financial difficulties for some time, and last year it was reported that the Cabinet Office was recommending that government departments employing UKCloud look for alternative suppliers.

In January the company was bought for an undisclosed amount by chairman Jeff Thomas via a new investment company called Hadston 2, backed by UKCloud's existing institutional investors including BGF Group plc and Digital Alpha.

A partnership with HPE planned for this summer was postponed.