Fit-out firm to axe 245 jobs

A Black Country shop fit-out specialist  is set to make 245 people redundant.

The Alan Nuttall Partnership, which has operations in Dudley and Hinkley in Leicestershire, is suffering from the crisis on the high street as shops and restaurants cut back on investment.

It employs around 400 people in Dudley, where the company’s main shopfitting operation is based, and around 100 staff in Hinckley.

Last week managing director Nino Calandra told staff that “drastic” action was needed to save the company.

He said: “It is our intention to downsize and re‐shape the business to reflect the shrinking retail sector. Sadly we have no option. We need to do this to live to fight another day.

“The retail sector in the UK is facing a number of challenges.  Recent reports suggest that over 10,000 shops will close this year. In addition, the deals struck by some retailers to merge or form alliances whilst helping their businesses, actually put more strain on business such as Nuttalls and may cause a further slowdown in retail markets, which clearly doesn’t help the situation.

“The growth of on‐line retailing seems virtually unstoppable. Traditional retailers, whilst having a larger choice of empty shops countrywide to choose from, are hesitating to open new branches for a number of reasons, with confidence at a worrying level as we head towards Brexit next March.  The seemingly unstoppable growth of supermarkets ‐ the retail sensation for the last forty years ‐ is coming to an end.  No longer are large retailers each opening 20 to 30 new stores a year.  It’s unlikely that will ever happen again.”

Earlier in the year, the company made a number of redundancies and restructured some areas of the business.

Calandra said: “We have invested time and resource to try and move into new sectors to reduce our dependence on the retail sector, but sadly this doesn’t happen overnight, although we hope we will see the benefits of these actions in the near future.”

The company has nearly a million square foot of manufacturing, engineering and office space, and has grown from a small display firm in 1966 into a multi award‐winning interior fit‐out and display business, which counts many of the UK’s top retail and hospitality brands amongst its customers, including Morrisons, Homebase and Harrods.

It predominantly builds shop interiors, food counters and signs. It has been trading for over 50 years.