How private equity firm Aurelius shuttered the doors of a historic U.K. community institution after 118 years of operations

Off-road wheel and hub manufacturer Moveero Limited’s U.K. administration process and the auction of Moveero’s Telford-Shropshire plant

Buyer alert. After two failed efforts to sell off-highway wheel manufacturer Moveero and the shuttering of Moveero’s historic Telford plant in the U.K., private equity giant Aurelius finds itself under the spotlight of public scrutiny, just as it should be.

Before being acquired by Aurelius Group, off-highway wheel manufacturer GKN Wheels & Structures had a storied history spanning 112 years in the United Kingdom. GKN operated from the historic Hadley Castle Works facility in Telford-Shropshire, where it employed 250 staff constructing chassis frames and other components for automotive and off-highway industries. According to the Express & Star, the firm was linked to the name Joseph Sankey & Sons, which played a vital role in manufacturing Spitfires during the Second World War.

GKN maintained long-term relationships with its partners; the firm served JCB for thirty years, and from 2010 to 2020 supplied JCB with over 22,000 chassis frames and more than one million wheels globally. Working alongside JCB engineers, GKN constructed the chassis that enabled JCB to create the world’s fastest tractor—a Fastrac model capable of reaching a top speed of 153.8 mph.

In September 2020, GKN announced that, despite challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, it had re-built the entire production line of the Telford plant, enabling it to produce more than three times as many wheels as the old plant—55 off-highway wheels per hour. Darren Dobson, Head of Operations at Telford, said, “The factory is quite simply unrecognizable from what it was just a couple of years ago and we now have a modern, twenty first century manufacturing facility.”

Enter Aurelius.

In October 2020, Aurelius announced it was acquiring GKN, which operated manufacturing facilities in the United States and Denmark in addition to the U.K. plant. The transaction was finalized in November 2020.

Dr. Dirk Markus, chief executive officer of the Aurelius Group, said at the time: “This acquisition is another example of Aurelius’s strength in acquiring non-core divisions of large corporates and successfully executing these complex transactions. As a global market leader with a strong and committed customer base, GKN Wheels & Structures is well-positioned for future growth under Aurelius’s ownership.”

From 2021 to 2022, Aurelius provided positive reports regarding GKN, which it rebranded to Moveero in August 2021.

Aurelius reported in August 2022 that “The portfolio companies moveero, Silvan, Conaxess Trade Group, Distrelec, and European Imaging Group also reported strong operating results.”
Moveero’s UK branch Moveero Limited (“Moveero Limited”) reported revenue of £37,446,000 and profit of £505,000 for the year ended December 31, 2021.

However, from 2022 to 2023, Moveero Limited began to suffer under Aurelius’s stewardship.

Moveero Limited reported revenue of £45,364,000 and an operating loss of £1,485,000 for the year ended December 31, 2022.
Moveero Limited reported revenue of £44,072,000 and an operating loss of £242,000 for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Moveero’s UK Group (Sankey Holding Limited as holding company for Moveero Limited and Autostructures Limited) entered into administration—the UK equivalent of bankruptcy—on March 26, 2026 after becoming insolvent. Ryan Grant, Chris Pole, and Sam Birchall of Interpath were appointed as the joint administrators, taking control of the business’s operations and assets from the previous directors. The company entered administration citing a weakened off-highway market, strong competition, and structural costs.

In administration filings, Moveero Limited reported that before entering administration, “the directors and ultimate shareholder explored strategic options, including a consensual sale of the wider Moveero Group. Whilst sale processes for non-UK parts of the group continue, no deliverable interest emerged for the UK operations.”

As of December 31, 2024, the last year for which it provided accounts, Moveero Limited reported a loss of £4.4 million, and sales had dropped 26% to £32.6 million. Parent company Sankey Holding Limited was buried under £18.9 million in liabilities with only £119,000 in current assets. Interpath stated that the firm entered administration to protect the interests of creditors, allowing for operations to continue as Moveero Limited looks for a buyer, and that its “immediate priority is to seek buyers for the UK businesses and assets.”

CEO David Geraghty stated that customers had provided emergency funding during this period, that has “given us the additional time we need to continue to explore the options available.”

But Aurelius and Interpath’s effort to sell Moveero Limited failed yet again. In late June 2026, operations ceased at the Telford plant and 98 workers were made redundant (the UK term for laid off). Interpath reported that the financial investment required to turn the business around meant a sale was not possible.

That is so despite the fact, discussed above, that Moveero’s former owner rebuilt the entire production line of the Telford plant immediately before selling Moveero to Aurelius.

Under UK insolvency hierarchy, the funds realized by Interpath from selling off the Telford factory assets, machinery, and intellectual property at an online auction held on July 15, 2026 are allocated in the following priority order: secured creditors with a fixed charge (creditors with security over a specific asset such as a bank with a mortgage), insolvency practitioners’ fees and expenses, preferential creditors (such as employee salaries and pension contributions), secondary preferential creditors (including certain HMRC debts), prescribed part creditors (the Enterprise Act 2002 created a guarantee for unsecured creditors to receive a proportion of the distribution to certain secured creditors), secured creditors with a floating charge (creditors with security over the company’s general pool of assets, rather than a specific asset), non-preferential creditors (unsecured creditors such as suppliers owed payment, or customers owed refunds), and shareholders.

Moveero Limited has three secured creditors – Wells Fargo (which was repaid in full as of May 6, 2026), Aurelius, and Moveero A/S (Moveero’s Denmark branch group). Interpath stated on May 6, 2026 that “We anticipate that there will be a distribution to Aurelius from the UK Group, however timing and amounts are currently uncertain until the sale of business process is concluded (Section 5 – Dividend Prospects),” that “it is unknown whether there will be sufficient funds to enable a distribution to Nagbol (Moveero A/S)” and that “Based on current estimates, it is unlikely that there will be a dividend to unsecured creditors (Section 5 – Dividend prospects).”

Sankey Holding Limited also holds an investment in Moveero Group’s technology centre, Moveero Srl, which is based in Italy. In its administration filing, Sankey states that “We will pursue realisations from this investment through the sale of business process.”

Potential buyers and other interested stakeholders should ask Aurelius, Interpath, Moveero and other affiliated entities the following questions:

Why did the firms’ efforts to sell Moveero fail twice?
How much emergency funding did Moveero’s customers provide, and will they be repaid?
Did the Aurelius invest in further modernizing the Telford plant, and if not, why not?
What effect if any has the administration process had on Moveero’s operations in Denmark and Italy? Specifically, will Moveero A/S be repaid, and will Moveero’s technology centre in Italy have a new owner?
Has Aurelius damaged Moveero’s decades-long relationships with customers? Will Moveero’s customers outside of the U.K. trust a firm that was forced to auction off the Telford plant for parts?