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Waterford Wedgwood: 367 UK redundancies

More than 300 staff at china and crystal maker Waterford Wedgwood, which entered administration on 5 January 2009, have lost their jobs, administrators Deloitte confirmed 12 January 2009.
A total of …

More than 300 staff at china and crystal maker Waterford Wedgwood, which entered administration on 5 January 2009, have lost their jobs, administrators Deloitte confirmed 12 January 2009. A total of 367 workers were laid off, the majority at the company“s site in Barlaston, Staffordshire, Deloitte said. Angus Martin, joint administrator, said the job losses were out of a total of 1,868 UK employees. “The business will be continuing to trade as normal, and the administrators are continuing discussions with parties who have expressed an interest in purchasing the business”, he said. “Every effort is being made to avoid further redundancies across the business”. Deloitte said the redundancies affected 245 manufacturing and operations staff and 106 administration and back office workers in Barlaston. In addition, eight employees were made redundant from the Wedgwood visitor centre and shop in Barlaston, out of a total of 39. It is thought around 600 people were employed at the site prior to the move into administration. Mr Martin said: “A number of these redundancies had already been announced by the company prior to our appointment and the company had also been considering further redundancies at Barlaston later in the year as part of its ongoing restructuring plan”. In the week ending 11 January 2009 it emerged that “certain assets” of the Wedgwood group could be sold to private equity, after New York-based buy-out company KPS Capital Partners signed a letter of intent. A spokeswoman for Deloitte said: “It was a letter of intent so discussions remain ongoing with them and a number of other parties”. In Ireland, the firm has around 800 staff based in Waterford, a city with a crystal-making history going back to 1783.

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