Jobs at risk as historic East Mids signmaker enters administration
An historic Northampton sign company has entered administration after 67 years of trading.
Hawes Signs, which is based on Moulton Park, is one of the largest signage businesses in the UK, but has appointed administrators from Leonard Curtis’s Manchester office to look after the day-to-day running of the company.
Hawes was sold to the HLD Group in January 2015 after the loss of a major customer left the business struggling to survive. The company had been trading under a company voluntary arrangement, but this appears to have failed.
In its latest available company results, Hawes turned over £18.1m for the year ending 31 December 2014, and lost £2.9m – up from a loss of £296,894 in 2013. Results show that the company owed over £7m to creditors. At the time the company employed 203 people.
Hawes is joint owner of ECCE – a global network of sign companies and has worked for companies such as Ann Summers, Waitrose, Texaco, Toyota, Tesco and Thomas Cook.
Hawes was originally based in London, but moved to Northampton in 1982 and expanded its site in 1988. The firm’s original shareholders had been involved in signmaking since 1865.
