Happli staff ‘sacked by email’

STAFF at Trinity Mirror’s Liverpool-based daily deals platform Happli claim they were “sacked by email” when the new chief executive announced the business would close.

Former HMV chief executive Simon Fox sent an email to all staff on Monday morning at the same time as a stock market announcement detailing a slimmer management structure and the end of Happli – launched in March with the aim of investing £10m to deliver net revenues of £20m by 2014.

In an email sent to TheBusinessDesk.com an anonymous member of the Trinity team claims this was the first the 30-strong Happli team knew of plans to close the business.

They write: “This email includes the paragraph sacking all the Happli staff and this is the first they had heard about it. Sacked by email is appalling. No apology from the CEO or the new COO to the Happli staff.

“Several members of the staff have only been employed by Happli for as short as three weeks, they gave up good jobs to move to Trinity Mirror.”

In the stock market statement Trinity said Happli was “unlikely to reach sufficient scale to become profitable in the near term”.

In his message to staff Mr Fox said: “I want to thank [managing director] Dave Raywood and his team for all their hard work over the last 12 months. We will today commence consultation with the employees affected and will seek to utilise the assets and capabilities built by Happli in other parts other business, particularly Reader Offers.”

Trinity, which owns the Manchester Evening News and the Liverpool Post & Echo, was hoping to take a slice of the offers market which is valued at £100m. The team in Liverpool consists of sales, design, marketing and admin staff.

No one at Trinity Mirror could be reached for comment.