Merger failed to save Salford lighting firm
DOMESTIC lighting distributor Associated Lighting Group and its subsidiaries have been placed in administration with the loss of 58 jobs in Salford and Leeds.
ALG trades through its two subsidiaries, Leeds-based Ring and Salford-based Trident, and was formed by a merger of the two businesses last September.
The domestic lighting distributor supplies light bulbs and interior and exterior lighting to a number of DIY, supermarket and high street retailers.
The group has made 33 staff redundant at Ring, based on Gelderd Road in Leeds, and 25 at Trident, based on Greengate in Salford. In total, it employed around 123 people.
Hunter Kelly and Charles King of Ernst & Young have been appointed joint administrators of ALG and its subsidiaries.
Mr King said: “Management has been working hard to integrate both businesses, but surplus stock, pressure from creditors and difficult market conditions earlier in the year have ultimately led to our appointment.
“We intend to continue to trade the business whilst seeking a buyer. The Lighting Factory Shop on Gelderd Road in Leeds remains open for business.”
Following the merger last year, the company’s chief executive David Gutfruend had said that he’d hoped bringing the two struggling firms together would boost sales by 20 per cent.
Gutfruend, who had previously been executive chairman at Salford-based Trident, had said the firm intended to boost sales to the social housing sector after receiving backing from Burdale Financial, the trade finance arm of Bank of Ireland.
The last trading figures for the companies as independents showed that Trident made pre-tax profits of £23,000 on sales of £10m in the year to December 2008 while Ring Ltd made pre-tax profits of £2.8m on sales of £34.5m for the year to the end of September 2007.
