Twice-Insolvent Recruiter Resurfaces as New Brand, Creditors Out £3m

By Olivia Hart

Creditors are owed more than £3m after Andrew Woosnam's recruitment business collapsed twice within a year — yet a third, near-identical venture is already trading under a new name.

Woosnam's Premier Group Recruitment entered administration in September 2025 owing £2.9m, including £647,000 to HM Revenue and Customs, according to Companies House filings reported by The Guardian. HMRC had begun enforcement proceedings against the company before it failed. Of the total owed across Woosnam's insolvent companies, more than £1m is due to the UK taxpayer.

The collapse marked a sharp reversal for a business that, just a few years ago, marketed itself as award-winning. Woosnam owned 99% of its shares.

How the first collapse unfolded?

Three days after Premier Group entered administration, its assets were acquired by a new company, PGGBR Ltd — also owned by Woosnam. He paid £10,000 upfront and promised administrators a further £600,000 through monthly £25,000 instalments over two years.

On paper, those promised payments outbid a competing offer of £321,000 in cash. Critics would call the structure a pre-pack administration: a connected party buying back a business on deferred consideration. Studies have repeatedly linked pre-packs to worse outcomes for creditors.

That is what happened here. The promised payments never materialized, and PGGBR ran up a further £400,000 in debt to HMRC, according to the latest Companies House filings. The Guardian approached a joint administrator at KRE Corporate Recovery, who did not return calls about the case.

The takeaway: a paper promise of £600,000 beat £321,000 in real cash, and the promise was never kept.

What did Woosnam take out before the failures?

The filings show Woosnam received a £1.2m director's loan from Premier Group and took dividends totaling almost £2m since 2022. He also appears to have drawn a further £200,000 via a director's loan from PGGBR before that company was placed into liquidation last month.

Meanwhile, insolvency professionals are now pursuing his personal assets on behalf of creditors. They include his three-hectare property in Berkshire — once owned by comedians Dawn French and Lenny Henry — which he bought for £2.2m in 2013.

In plain terms: roughly £3.4m in loans and dividends left the two companies before both went under, while creditors were left with a fraction of their claims.

Is the business back for a third time?

Evidence suggests it may be. At least eight former Premier Group staff now say they work for a new recruitment brand, Xpertis Talent, created in July 2026. The Guardian reports the new venture looks so similar to the two insolvent companies that even employees appear confused.

One Xpertis recruitment consultant, previously with Premier Group, attributed a 2022 industry award won by the original company to the new venture in LinkedIn marketing materials. Another employee posted on LinkedIn that he began working for the third company before it was even registered at Companies House.

Woosnam is not a shareholder of Xpertis Talent. Filings show the company is wholly owned by an individual based in Thailand. Woosnam is understood to have Thai family, though no connection between them and the new business has been established. He did not respond to invitations to comment.

What remains unresolved?

Several questions stay open. Administrators have not publicly explained why the deferred-payment deal was accepted over cash, or what recovery creditors can now expect. Nobody has established who controls Xpertis Talent beyond the Thailand-based owner of record.

What is clear is the arithmetic: two insolvencies in roughly a year, more than £3m owed, over £1m of it to the taxpayer — and a third brand carrying the same staff, the same trade and, at least in one LinkedIn post, the same award.