Members news: High profile advanced engineering firm appoints administrators

Once one of the bright lights of Gloucestershire with a profile to match, an advanced engineering firm that was even courted by the then UK Prime Minister, has appointed administrators.

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It seems like a lifetime ago. Back in 2018 the Gloucestershire-based co-founder of a high-flying county engineering firm was escorting Theresa May on a three-day trade visit to China.

All seemed rosy with the fast-growing firm, which had also become a darling of the Alternative Investment Market.

In 2021 there was another high-profile deal, if only for those who followed the firm here in Gloucestershire and were fans of fashion brand Superdry, when the two firms agreed to work together.

And then everything changed. Neil Ricketts, founder and also chief executive officer of Versarien plc, as well as part of the successful Gloucestershire’s local enterprise partnership team at GFirst LEP, resigned from his position in March 2023.

Since then it has been a different story for the business, which until then appeared well-positioned to capitalise on the incredible properties of wonder material graphene.

Fast forward to now and this week we learned that the Forest of Dean-headquartered business has appointed administrators.