Recruitment brand reappears after two collapses leave creditors owed £3m
Andrew Woosnam’s recruitment business has collapsed twice since September 2025, leaving creditors owed more than £3m, including HMRC. A new recruitment brand, Xpertis Talent, has since appeared with former Premier Group staff, raising questions about whether the business has resurfaced for a third time and what creditors may recover.
Premier Group entered administration owing £2.9m, including £647,000 to HMRC; its assets were bought by a company also owned by Woosnam, which promised £600,000 in instalments after an initial £10,000 payment. Those promised payments did not materialise, the new company accrued a further £400,000 HMRC debt and later went into liquidation. Woosnam had received a £1.2m director’s loan and nearly £2m in dividends from Premier Group, while Xpertis, created in July 2026, is owned by someone based in Thailand and employs at least eight former staff.
In short
- Premier Group collapsed owing £2.9m, including £647,000 to HMRC.
- Its successor failed to make promised payments and accrued more tax debt.
- Former staff have joined a new recruitment brand, Xpertis Talent.
Explained simply
Recruitment firms find workers for employers and usually earn fees when a placement is made. Andrew Woosnam’s Premier Group entered administration, a process in which an insolvency practitioner assesses a company’s finances and assets; it later went into liquidation, when assets are sold and the company is wound up.
The key parties include Premier Group, its creditors and HMRC, which collects tax, as well as the companies that bought its assets and the newer Xpertis Talent brand. Creditors are owed money by a company, but may recover only some or none of it if its assets are insufficient.
The appearance of a new brand with former Premier Group staff raises questions about how it relates to the earlier businesses. The scale of the unpaid debts also matters to creditors and to HMRC as a public body.
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Originally published by The Guardian as “The boss whose twice-bust business appears to be back despite £3m debts”.