Cybersecurity services firm Adarma has gone bust, leading to 173 staff losing their jobs.
Edinburgh-based Adarma, which was founded in 2009, had clients across various industry segments, including financial services and luxury goods.
It employed a total 176 staff across the headquarters in Scotland, an office London, and some working remotely. Joint administrators for the business were appointed last week, and it immediately ceased trading, with staff left with unpaid wages.
Adarma had seen a dip in sales, and increased losses, and a private equity investor had pulled out in response. The directors had tried to sell the business as a going concern, but failed.
Staff were told by the administrators that they were being made redundant immediately. Will Wright and Alistair McAlinden from Interpath are the appointed joint administrators.
Staff will not be paid wages earned during this month, and they will have to claim them through the government’s Redundancy Payments Service, which covers an amount of up to £719 per week.
The three out of 176 staff still remaining at the firm are presumably senior management, helping the administrators to formally wind up the business.
Administrator Will Wright said: “Adarma had built a strong reputation in the cybersecurity sector, but sustained margin and cashflow pressures ultimately proved insurmountable. Like many in the industry, the business faced intense competition, rising operational costs, and a continual need for investment.”
“Given Adarma’s financial position, we’ve made the difficult decision to cease trading. Our team is working closely with affected employees to support them through the redundancy process, including assistance with applications to the Redundancy Payments Office.”
Adarma as a brand was created in 2019, after the ECS Group spun out its ECS Security business as part of an MBO.
The MBO was backed by private equity firm Livingbridge, the investor that pulled out before the administration last week. The MBO was led by David Calder and Nathan Dornbrook. Adarma provided IT security consulting, solutions and services, with expertise in threat management, including security operations centre (SOC) design, build and operation services for large enterprises.
David Calder, former MD of Adarma, said at the time of the MBO: “Our decision to create Adarma is part of our desire to focus exclusively on the security space with the aim of becoming the UK market leader for FTSE 250 organisations across a broad range of industries.”
Core Adarma technology partners had included Splunk, ServiceNow, and Tenable.
