Emails were sent to all staff at 11am, breaking the news that attempts had failed to refinance the £142m revenue family building business.

The email said: “As many of you will be aware the group has recently suffered from a number of project delays, payment disputes with clients and failure of several key subcontractors.”

It confirmed the directors had been in talks with a number of funders to resolve cash flow issues but these had failed.

“The directors have taken the very difficult decision to place the Shaylor Group into administration,” it said.

One employee told the Enquirer: “What a fathers day email to get. We were due to be paid a five-week month on Wednesday but won’t be seeing that.

“It seems we will be formally made redundant on Monday or Tuesday.”

Another said: “They didn’t even tell us to our faces, we’ve been told there is no requirement to come in and should just monitor our emails.”

On Friday many staff at the Aldridge-based firm were told go home after subcontractors turned up at the head office demanding to get paid.

At one point it is understood police had to be called to calm the situation.

Subcontractors that worked on the Silverstone racing circuit visitors centre and Emporium student tower in Birmingham are among those left out of pocket.

Fears had been growing that the family-owned building group was in financial trouble since the start of the year.

Despite Shaylor Group reporting a pre-tax profit of £7.6m on revenue of £142m in 2018, subcontractors started to experience delays in payment early this year.

Credit reference agency Top Service said it had received around 64 adverse reports about payments to suppliers in the last 12 months, above average for a company of its size.

Another contractor said: “There were never problems with payment until the start of the year and then we started to run into difficulty getting paid.”

A subcontractor, who was working on Shaylor’s job for University College Birmingham, said: “Several of us haven’t been paid for two months and we finally decided it was time to walk off the job.

“There have been whispers of problems for several months.”