600 jobs at risk as Safestyle on brink of administration
600 jobs are at risk after Safestyle UK revealed it is on the brink of administration.
The windows and doors retailer suspended trading in its shares on Friday morning and then later filed a notice of intention to appoint administrators in court.
This move gives it up to 10 days’ protection from action by creditors while it seeks to find a rescue plan.
However the company announced that the parties it had been in talks with over a proposed sale had “withdrawn their respective interests”. This triggered Friday’s action because Safestyle “concluded that they are no longer able to continue trading as a going concern”.
The notice of intention filings covered its main trading subsididary HPAS, and intermediate holding companies Style Group Holdings and Style Group UK.
The company is headquartered in Bradford and has a glass processing site in Barnsley.
Safestyle was founded in 1992 and had grown to become the UK’s largest homeowner window and door replacement company by 2013 when it floated on the Alternative Investment Market.
Workers have taken to social media to express their shock and disappointment at the news.
Richard Longbottom, who joined Safestyle as its chief sales officer in April, described it as “the worst 48 hours of [his] career”.
Regional operations manager Danny Orgill, who has spent nearly all of the last 27 years working for Safestyle, wrote on LinkedIn: “The dedication and hard work to go above and beyond by everyone these last few months have been very tough but we never stopped striving to keep going.”
