Coops EMBS Folds While Sheffield Sister Firms Keep Trading

Coops EMBS Limited cut all 18 jobs on 16 June 2026 after Leonard Curtis could not sell the Sheffield electrical and building services firm.

The original Coops electrical company is in administration, while two sister firms on the same industrial yard remain Active.

All 18 Staff Went When the Sale Failed

Danielle Shore and Stephen Beverley of Leonard Curtis were appointed joint administrators of Coops EMBS Limited once it was clear that no buyer would take the business on. Companies House records that administration started on 16 June 2026, and both office holders are listed at Fountain Precinct on Leopold Street in Sheffield.

Unfortunately, a sale could not be secured for Coops EMBS and the company subsequently entered administration. Our immediate priority is to support employees through the redundancy process, safeguard the company’s assets and fulfil our statutory duties to creditors.

Danielle Shore, joint administrator, Leonard Curtis

That is the whole public account of the collapse. There was a sale process, it failed, and every employee went. The registered office moved from Unit 12 Savile Street East to the Leonard Curtis address on 30 June 2026, which is the usual paper trail when a trading site shuts and the case file moves to the insolvency firm.

Ian David Cooper, an electrical contractor, and Justine Lindsey Cooper, listed as a distributor, have been directors since 10 March 2010, the day the company was formed as Coops Electrical Ltd. It was renamed Coops EMBS Limited on 2 October 2020, when the work widened from commercial and industrial electrical contracting into mechanical and building services. The nature of business on the register is still 43210, electrical installation.

The company’s own site said Martin Clawson joined as a director in 2018 with mechanical and electrical experience. He does not appear on the current Coops EMBS officer list. He does appear on the sister companies that kept an Active flag.

The Balance Sheet Left Almost No Equity

The last full accounts, for the year to 31 March 2025, put fixed assets at £251,000 and current assets at about £956,000. Liabilities left total equity at £1,588.

THE LAST PUBLIC NUMBERS

• Staff at collapse: All 18 employees were made redundant after the failed sale.
• Fixed assets: £251,000 in the accounts to 31 March 2025.
• Current assets: About £956,000 in the same accounts.
• Equity: £1,588 once liabilities were set against those assets.

That is a contractor with a large pile of assets on paper and almost no net worth. A filing of this size does not put a full public profit and loss on the register in the way a big listed builder would, so the accounts do not, on their face, say why a buyer walked away. They only show how thin the buffer was.

Those accounts went in on 22 December 2025. A confirmation statement dated 10 March 2026 recorded no updates. Three months later the company was in administration.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The appointment: Shore and Beverley of Leonard Curtis have run the case since 16 June 2026.
• The jobs: All 18 staff were made redundant when no sale could be completed.
• The group split: Coops Renewables Limited and Coops Switchgear Limited remain Active, and Coops Group Limited files dormant accounts.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• The cause: Directors have not published a public account of the cash shortfall, unpaid work, or lost contracts that ended the sale.
• The creditors: No statement of affairs totals have been put in the open record used for this report.
• The work: It is not confirmed whether live jobs moved to the sister companies that still trade.

Until those papers are public, the only hard facts are the appointment, the headcount, and a balance sheet that had already run out of equity.

Four Companies Shared One Sheffield Yard

Coops EMBS did not sit alone. From late 2023 the Coops name was spread across four limited companies around President Buildings on Savile Street East, with Switchgear directors also using a Catley Road address in Sheffield.

THE COOPS COMPANIES ON THE REGISTER

The original vehicle is the one that employed the 18 staff and took the administration. Renewables, Switchgear, and Group were formed in a four-month stretch from December 2023 to April 2024, long after the 2020 rename, and they were not put into the same insolvency case.

HOW THE NAME WAS SPLIT

1. 10 March 2010: Forms as Coops Electrical Ltd, with Ian David Cooper and Justine Lindsey Cooper as directors.
2. 2 October 2020: Changes name to Coops EMBS Limited after moving into mechanical and building services.
3. 20 December 2023: Coops Renewables Limited is formed at 12 President Buildings, Savile Street East.
4. 20 February 2024: Coops Group Limited is formed at Unit 12 President Buildings, with dormant accounts and a consulting SIC code.
5. 4 April 2024: Coops Switchgear Limited is formed, later adding directors at 68-70 Catley Road.
6. 16 June 2026: Coops EMBS Limited enters administration and all 18 staff are made redundant.
7. 3 August 2026: Martin Clawson resigns as a director of Coops Renewables Limited.

Clawson remains a director of Coops Switchgear Limited and Coops Group Limited. Connor Jay Brown was appointed to Renewables on 28 February 2026, four days after Simon John Kitchen left that board. Stuart Andrew Bingham and Philip Brian Booker joined Switchgear on 1 July 2024. Ian Cooper is still on EMBS, Renewables, Switchgear, and Group.

Who Still Answers Under the Coops Name?

The administration is confined to Coops EMBS Limited. Coops Renewables Limited is still Active at Companies House, with last accounts made up to 31 March 2026, a year-end that closed before the EMBS appointment. Coops Switchgear Limited is Active. Coops Group Limited is Active and files dormant accounts.

Renewables was set up for solar, batteries, heat pumps, and EV charging. Switchgear took the panel and distribution work. EMBS kept the broader electrical, mechanical, and building services book that had grown after 2020, and that is the book that died.

A lighting supplier, Crompton Lamps, posted on 19 August 2024 that it had fitted out a Coops Switchgear space in Sheffield for opening. The same supplier posted on 23 October 2024 after a training session hosted by Coops EMBS. The group was still presenting itself as a live Sheffield contractor through late 2024, which is why the June 2026 shutdown reads as a ring-fence of the original company rather than a wipe-out of the name.

JOBS THE FIRM SAID IT WAS DOING

• Sectors on the site: Commercial, industrial, sports, leisure, retail, health, and education.
• Spear & Jackson: A boundary wall rebuild posted from the Coops EMBS company page.
• Nexus Multi Academy Trust: Fencing, access control, and landscaping around school buildings.
• Charity work: Posts tying the firm to Barnsley Hospital Charity and a staff boxing night for Diabetes UK, run with the sister companies.

Those posts do not say what happened to unfinished work after 16 June 2026. Clients on live sites would have had to find another contractor. The sister companies were the obvious place to look, and nothing on the public register shows a transfer of the EMBS contracts.

Yorkshire’s Building Trades Keep Hitting Administration

Coops EMBS is a small case next to some of the other Yorkshire failures in 2026, and it sits in a crowded list. A Gazette tracker from K2 Partners logged 100 insolvency notices covering 59 Yorkshire construction companies between 26 August 2026 and 28 September 2026, most of them liquidations rather than administrations.

Torsion Construction, a Leeds build-to-rent and student-housing contractor, went down on 29 July 2026. Administrators there made 108 staff redundant from a workforce of 115 and said unsecured creditors were highly unlikely to see a dividend. Hull mechanical and electrical firm Tucker had already gone in 2025 with a supply chain measured in the millions. ADS Electrical Services in Easingwold went into liquidation in July 2026 with a stated deficiency around £190,000.

The Coops case is not in that pound-size class. It is the same trade, though: electrical and mechanical contractors working on other people’s buildings, waiting on certificates, retentions, and main-contractor cash. When a sale cannot be found, the staff go first and the name, if it has been split into other companies, can stay on the industrial estate.

Redundancy Pay Now Runs Through the State

Shore said the first job after the failed sale was to support the 18 staff through redundancy and to protect what assets remain for creditors. Employees of a company in administration claim unpaid wages, holiday pay, and statutory redundancy from the Insolvency Service, which pays from the National Insurance Fund and then stands in the queue. That process is slow, and it is capped, and it is now the practical next step for the people who actually did the installs.

Unsecured suppliers wait on realisations. Preferential claims, including some of the employee arrears that the state does not cover, sit ahead of them. Without a published statement of affairs, there is no honest figure for what those creditors will recover. The office holders’ duty is to that queue, not to keeping the Coops brand on Savile Street East.

The brand is still there. Renewables has an Active flag and post-appointment accounts on the register. Switchgear has extra directors and a second Sheffield address. Group sits as a dormant vehicle with Cooper and Clawson on the board. The company that hired the electricians, ran the building-services jobs, and took the 18 salaries is the one at Fountain Precinct.

Ian Cooper remains a director of the companies that still trade. Coops EMBS Limited does not.