The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Further jobs blow as P&H subsidiaries close down
Administration misery compounded as operations fail to find buyer
Administrators have announced that three subsidiaries of wholesaler Palmer & Harvey are to close, causing job losses in Dundee, Bellshill and Livingston.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) were appointed as administrators to P&H at the end of last month, immediately bringing 2,500 job losses nationwide.
More than 150 of these redundancies were at the firm’s Dunfermline-based operation Palmer and Harvey McLane Limited, which supplies tobacco products to retailers.
Just 31 workers were kept on at the depot at Pitreavie Business Park.
Yesterday PwC announced that they had failed to find a buyer for three of the wholesalers’ companies – P&H Direct Van Sales Limited, P&H Sweetdirect Limited and P&H Snacksdirect Limited.
The move means a further 404 job losses including 25 in Scotland – 16 in Bellshill, seven in Livingston and two in Dundee.
Matthew Callaghan, one of three joint administrators, said that while there had been interest from potential buyers, it had not been possible to achieve a sale.
He said that as a result the administrators had had no alternative but to make the “difficult decision” to make 404 people redundant across the country, retaining a small number of staff to help with the wind-down of the business.
Mr Callaghan added: “We have been working closely with the directors of the vans business to pursue a sale.
“However, it is with regret that we have to announce this has not been successful.
“We will be working with those being made redundant, as we have with those made redundant previously, to assist and provide support where possible.”
The Dundee operation, P&H Snacksdirect Limited, was based at the Wester Gourdie Industrial Estate.
Palmer & Harvey was one of the UK’s largest private companies, employing 3,400 and supplying around 90,000 shops across the UK.
It said that it had been hit by “challenging trading conditions and efforts to restructure the business have been unsuccessful”.
Last year the heavily indebted company made profits of just £618,000 despite sales of £2.5 billion.
Tesco’s takeover of Booker has been blamed as a catalyst for P&H’s downfall amid questions that the supermarket giant would switch to using Booker, threatening P&H’s livelihood.