Coatbridge-based Galino Limited, a manufacturer of fasteners and machine-screw products in business for 45 years, has been placed into administration, with all 12 staff made redundant. David McGinness and Judith Howson of AAB Business & Tax Advisory have been appointed joint administrators.
Administrator David McGinness said the business ceased to trade on appointment and that a small number of former employees would help the administrators for a short period. Creditors, employees, customers and other affected parties would be contacted directly.
The collapse sits against a broader Scottish insolvency picture that has softened but remains elevated. Accountant in Bankruptcy figures show 240 corporate insolvencies in Scotland in the second quarter of 2026, down 27.7% year on year from 332, with compulsory liquidations falling from 167 to 97.
Blair Milne, corporate insolvency partner at Azets in Glasgow, said the fall in corporate insolvencies was encouraging but should not be read as evidence that pressure on Scottish businesses had eased. Insolvency activity remained elevated by historic standards, he said, and many companies continued to trade in difficult conditions.
About Administration
Administration is a formal insolvency procedure under the Insolvency Act 1986 (as substantially amended by the Enterprise Act 2002, which inserted Schedule B1) that applies across the United Kingdom, including Scotland. When a company enters administration, control passes from its directors to a licensed insolvency practitioner — the administrator — who must act in the interests of the creditors as a whole. The administrator’s statutory purpose, set out in Schedule B1, is to pursue three hierarchical objectives: first, to rescue the company as a going concern; failing that, to achieve a better result for creditors than would be likely in an immediate liquidation, often by selling the business and assets as a going concern; and only if neither is reasonably practicable, to realise the company’s property to make a distribution to secured or preferential creditors. On appointment, a statutory moratorium takes effect, halting most legal actions and enforcement against the company and giving the administrator breathing space to trade the business, market it for sale, or wind down operations in an orderly way. In the Galino case, the joint administrators from AAB Business & Tax Advisory ceased trading on appointment and made the workforce redundant, which typically indicates that a going-concern rescue may not viable and the process will focus on realising remaining assets for creditors
Administration is, by insolvency-law standards, a relatively young procedure. The Insolvency Act 1986 received Royal Assent on 25 July 1986, and Part II — the administration-order regime — came into force on 29 December 1986 alongside the Insolvency Rules 1986 (legislation.gov.uk). One of the very first companies to enter the new procedure was Aberdeen-based regional carrier Air Ecosse, placed into administration in January 1987, within weeks of the regime becoming available. The airline traded on under administration before its assets were acquired and the business revived in March 1989 as Aberdeen Airways under the directorship of Mike Hornblower — an early practical demonstration of what the Cork Report and the 1986 Act had set out to enable: the rescue of a viable business as a going concern, and the preservation of skilled aviation jobs in the north-east of Scotland, rather than an immediate winding-up
