A recruitment industry entrepreneur has rebuilt his business for a third time despite creditors being owed more than £3m by his previous companies, including more than £1m owed to the UK taxpayer. Andrew Woosnam's Premier Group Recruitment entered administration in September 2025 with debts of £2.9m, including £647,000 to HM Revenue and Customs. Three days later, Woosnam acquired the recruiter's assets through a new company called PGGBR Ltd, which he wholly owned. He made an initial £10,000 payment and promised administrators he would transfer a further £600,000 via monthly £25,000 instalments over two years. However, those promised payments failed to materialise, and the new company accumulated an additional £400,000 debt to HMRC, according to the latest Companies House filings.
The structure of Woosnam's deal, known as a pre-pack administration, has drawn scrutiny from researchers and critics who argue such arrangements can be highly risky for creditors. In the years before the first collapse, Woosnam extracted significant sums from Premier Group. He received a £1.2m director's loan from the defunct company and took dividends totalling almost £2m since 2022. He also appears to have received a further £200,000 via a director's loan from PGGBR before that phoenix company was placed into liquidation last month.
Despite these setbacks, Woosnam's business activities appear to have surfaced again. A new recruitment brand called Xpertis Talent was created in July 2026, and at least eight of Premier Group's former staff now work for it. The resemblance is so close that some employees appear confused about the connection. One Xpertis recruitment consultant has attributed an industry award won by the original Premier Group company in 2022 to the fresh venture in marketing materials posted on LinkedIn. According to Companies House filings, the new company is wholly owned by an individual based in Thailand, and Woosnam is not listed as a shareholder, although he is understood to have Thai family connections.
For UK business owners and creditors, this case underscores how pre-pack administrations can allow directors to revive failed businesses while leaving unpaid debts behind, with limited protection for creditors including tax authorities.