Administrators called in at entrepreneur’s consultancy
Administrators have been called in at health and safety management consultancy OHS, but owner Martin Penny has said he is committed to keeping the business afloat.
OHS, which includes the Compliance365 brand, lost a number of contracts over the past two years and the company experienced “difficult” trading conditions as a result.
Jonny Jowett of Live Recoveries was appointed as administrator on January 31.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk.com, Penny, best known as the founder of the ghd hair straightener brand, said: “I started the business 35 years ago and don’t want to see it go down. We want to do our best to keep it going.”
So far 15 people have been made redundant, with around 50 staff still employed by the company.
Penny said: “We want to continue to trade the company and want to pay everyone we can pay in a reasonable period of time. We’ve got staff to think about, and creditors to think about.
“I have no intention of shutting it down. I have been very impressed by a lot of the staff and staff have said to me, ‘Martin we want to keep going’, and I feel that I want to continue to support them.
“We’ve unfortunately lost some staff but we’re wanting to trade through the administration and keep as many staff and contracts as we can, albeit that the business will be smaller than it was.”
OHS has clients including Sainsbury’s, Johnsons Cleaners and the Co-operative Group.
Its most recent published accounts, for the year to March 2015, showed it made a very small pre-tax profit of £9,000, following a restated loss of £188,000. Sales were down from £9.3m to £7.92m.
It acquired Fieldside Health and Safety Management for an undisclosed seven-figure sum in 2010 and papers were filed at the end of January 2016 to change the name of a subsidiary from Fieldside Business Support to OHS Limited
Based on Whitehall Road, the company was founded in 1981. Chairman Martin Penny is best known as the co-creator of the ghd hair straightener and beauty brand, founded in 2001 along with Robert Powls and Gary Douglas. He left the Leeds-based company in 2008.
He has also founded Jack French London, and recruitment firm Morgan King.
