Rochdale toy firm calls in administrators
MARTIN Yaffe International, the family-owned toy distributor based in Rochdale, has been placed into administration.
John Titley and Andrew Poxon from the Bury office of insolvency firm Leonard Curtis have been appointed as joint administrators of the business, which employed around 160 people at its Queensway headquarters.
The company was set up in 1987 and was run by managing director Ronnie Yaffe. It produced, manufactured and distributed toys for retail chains such as Argos, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda. Many of its toys were produced under license, and it held licences for brands such as Bob The Builder, Dora The Explorer, Winnie the Pooh and Power Rangers.
However, in recent years it had struggled to maintain profits and its last set of accounts for the year to December 31, 2008, show a pre-tax loss of £3.3m on sales of £36.4m.
It is understood that a search for a buyer which began prior to the firm’s administration had proved fruitless. Moreover, although trading is expected to continue, this will be on a reduced basis, meaning that redundancies are likely.
