The Lancashire firm boasted the top 10 contractors among its customer base and supplied cladding for Westfield’s Straford shopping centre and many East London Line stations.

But AME had focused on turnover growth and its owners decided to exit the business.

Leading European copper cladding giant KME  bought machinery and rights for the company’s honeycomb Proteus Facade System from administrators last week.

Lee Caffrey, director of  new owner KME Architectural Solutions, said the deal put the cladding firm on a much stronger footing and opened the door to growing its export business.

The Skelmersdale manufacturing plant will continue to produce cladding and all staff have been retained.

Caffrey told the Enquirer: “Over the last 10 years the AME business lurched from bad year to good then bad. This is difficult to manage in an industry with solid fixed costs.”

“We  are  restarting with a clean slate and have the support of a 3bn euro company behind us.

“The deal brings massive added value and we expect the business to grow by 20-30% over the next few years.”