Exclusive: Yorkshire cashmere firm in administration
AN historic Yorkshire cashmere business had gone into administration with debts believed to be more than £2m.
Joseph Dawson, which was founded in Otley in 1871, supplies cashmere used by the world's best known fashion houses including Prada, Hermes, Gucci and Burberry and has a turnover of £9.5m.
It was bought for £6.6m by The Holdsworth Partnership led by Yorkshire textile entrepreneur Bill Holdsworth, from Scottish group Dawson International in 2003.
Mr Holdsworth based the trading offices in the Wharfebank Business Centre in Otley, in the same mill where it was started by its eponymous founder.
Joint administrators from Ernst & Young in Leeds have been appointed at the firm which they have put up for sale. Mr Holdsworth and a number of its 10 staff have been made redundant.
It is believed that the company went into administration after struggling to repay debts to the finance arm of GE.
Hunter Kelly, joint administrator, said that Joseph Dawson had suffered “cashflow difficulties”.
He said: “Joseph Dawson suffered cashflow difficulties following the rejection of a number of items of stock on quality grounds.”
Mr Kelly said he hoped the company could be sold as a going concern.
“This is a long-established world-renowned brand name and therefore I expect worldwide interest in the business and its assets.”
Ernst & Young is selling the Joseph Dawson trading name and logo, “substantial” stock holdings in the UK, China and Italy and the company's order book and goodwill.
The company collects raw cashmere fibre in all producing countries including China, Afghanistan, Iran and Mongolia, processing it in factories in China before the yarn is sold to yarnspinners in the UK and Italy and used to make high quality knitwear and jacketing for luxury brands.
In 2003, Joseph Dawson was a loss-making company within the quoted Dawson International group but was bought by Mr Holdsworth who relocated it from Scotland back to offices at the William Ackroyd mill in Otley.
The Duke of York joined fashion and textile industry experts from around the world at Harewood House in 2004 to celebrate the company's return to Yorkshire.
Joseph Dawson started his original cashmere business in the 1870s. He was travelling through Kashmir – the state the fibre takes its name from – when he noticed peasants separating the fine goat fibre from the coarser outer hair by hand.
He used the knowledge he had gained as a carding engineer at the William Ackroyd Mill to invent a machine that could perform this process and laid the foundations for what is now a worldwide industry worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
The purchase of the business in 2003 was funded by the Holdsworth family and a loan from a commodity trading bank in Holland.
