Bianco family leads consortium of staff, building companies to rescue its own collapsed firm

The son of Adelaide entrepreneur Nick Bianco, whose company Bianco Structural Steel entered administration last month just after expanding into a new warehouse, has rescued one division of his father’s company, leading a consortium of staff and building companies.

The rescue is a win for the business and the construction supplies industry as a whole, which is suffering due to the downturn in residential property sales.

Russell Bianco has purchased the construction supplies division of Bianco, which has about 100 staff. Ferrier Hodgson partner David Kidman, who was appointed as the company’s administrator, last month confirmed the construction supplies division continued to perform well.

Kidman was contacted this morning by SmartCompany but was unavailable to comment prior to publication.

Russell Bianco told AdelaideNow that his priority was to keep his father, a former Adelaide United football club owner and prominent philanthropist, employed.

“That was my driving force, to have something for him,” he said. “His concern was the staff and he built his business on looking after the staff, customers and the community.”

“He has built his reputation on that and that is what I want to maintain.”

The business collapsed under debt of $60 million, with the Structural Steel division the main source of the problem. Bianco Hire, Bianco Reinforcing and Bianco Pre-Cast weren’t affected by the appointment of administrators.

The Structural Steel division was closed down two weeks after administrators were appointed, with Kidman saying at the time that “it has become clear that the amount of work on hand at BSS was far lower than we expected”.