Upholstery producer Westbridge Furniture Designs has launched a short consolation with managerial and support staff which the conclusions of will be implemented at the beginning of September.
The company had switched to short-time working which had prevented it from making any production staff redundant. The £67.9m turnover company employed 768 production staff in the year to the end of November 2022, down from 878, along with 48 administration, sales and distribution employees. Since then it had consolidated production from three sites to two.
A pre-tax profit of £154,000 the previous year became a loss of £6.29m, while £3m of stock was written down.
The has been hit in recent months by the winding down of orders from Marks & Spencer after it exited the upholstery market, with the final order being placed on 31 July.
In March NorthEdge and Virgin Money invested £7.5m in Westbridge’s parent Belfield Group, with charges secured against Belfield, Westbridge and Tetrad.
‘During what is now considered the most challenging retail market since the financial crisis of 2008, we have been working hard to transform our business to be more efficient, more responsive and more customer focused, ensuring we can adapt to the market softness and laying the foundations of a more successful business for our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders in the longer term,’ says Tom Prestwich, Belfield Group chief executive.
‘However, we recognise that to ensure the longer-term success of our business, we need to make more substantive changes in order to protect the business in the short term and ensure our future resources are in line with the latest demand profile in discussions with our customers.
‘The decision to announce these proposals has been an incredibly difficult one and is in no way reflective of the hard work and dedication shown by our employees over the last few months, which has ultimately enabled us to retain our entire skilled operational workforce through short-time working rather than redundancy.
‘As a result of these proposals, we believe that Westbridge will become a more resilient and profitable business, ensuring we can safely navigate the short-term market impacts and repositioning us as a more agile, more cost-effective partner in the medium to longer term.’