Jacobson moves up to chairman at family firm

HARVEY Jacobson, the managing director of Rossendale-based shoe importer Jacobson Group, is to hand over day-to-day control of the running of the family-owned business to Tony Evans.

Jacobson, whose business includes footwear brands such as Gola, Frank Wright and Lotus, said that he intends to take on more of a strategic role, looking at “policy, acquisitions and opportunities.”

Jacobson said that his intention was to remain involved with the group but to spend less time running it. He said that Evans had joined the business 16 years ago selling shoes to independent stores, but had since worked his way up. He has been a director for five years and has most recently had responsibility for the development of the Gola brand.

“We sent an email to staff telling them what’s happening and the first one I got back asked me when I was retiring,” he said.

“In many companies there’s not an opportunity to manage change in an orderly fashion whereas here there’s every opportunity,” said Jacobson.

Jacobson intends to devote more time to other family-owned businesses, to charity work and on other potential ventures.

“I’ve got one or two other things in the pipeline,” he said. “You’ll have to watch this space.”

The last filed accounts for the company show a pre-tax loss of £1.2m on £58m but Jacobson said that the business is now performing well and had enjoyed “significant increases year on year” in trading since then.

“Things are still very difficult on the high street, though. So even though we’re doing very well we still remain cautious.”