MOVE HELPS SAVE 1000 EVEREST JOBS

DOUBLE glazing firm Everest has been saved, protecting at least 1000 jobs.

The company has been sold back to Guernseybased Better Capital, its private equity owner, through a pre-pack administration.

The deal includes existing customer orders and more than 400 jobs at Everest’s 18 distribution centres and two manufacturing sites in Sittingbourne, Kent, and Treherbert, Wales.

It will also come as a relief to 600 selfemployed window fitters.

However, administrators FRP Advisory said 188 workers face redundancy.

Everest was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Cuffley, Hertfordshire.

Alastair Massey, a joint administrator at FRP, said: “The business required restructuring to ensure a sustainable future in the face of incredibly challenging trading conditions in recent months. This deal secures a significant number of jobs and livelihoods for many affiliated roles.”

Meanwhile, more than one million businesses have applied for a Government-backed loan to help them get through the economic destruction caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Firms have also furloughed nearly nine million jobs under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, where the Government pays up to 80 per cent of workers’ wages, up to £2500 a month.

A big City investor has slammed HSBC and Standard Chartered over support for China’s controversial Hong Kong security law. Aviva Investors, which owns nearly £800million worth of stakes in the two banks, said it was “uneasy” at their backing “without knowing the details of the law or how it will operate in practice”. Beijing is proposing to impose security laws on Hong Kong for the first time.