The 2018 insolvency led to years of agonising by accountancy firms, with as yet no explanations or ways to avoid a repeat
Bankruptcies happen gradually, then suddenly, an Ernest Hemingway character famously deadpans in The Sun Also Rises. Yet the aftermath of insolvency can play out painfully slowly, as observers of Carillion’s collapse, four years ago this week, can testify.
Carillion had its fingers in a lot of pies, to the point where it is difficult to explain what its main business was: was it construction, or something woollier like “support services”? Cleaning and maintenance are crucial to almost any business, but they are also shockingly easy to outsource to complex and faceless conglomerates. That complexity extended to accounts built on the directors’ “increasingly fantastical figures”. To borrow the Queen’s question about the credit crunch, why did nobody notice?