LDV in administration as all staff made redundant
AILING van maker LDV yesterday laid off all its workers after it was put into administration.
LDV, which is owned by Oleg Deripaska’s GAZ, employed 850 people directly and thousands more in dealerships and supply chains.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will now take over the running of the firm.
“There is still the opportunity of a bright future for LDV,” the vanmaker said yesterday morning, shortly before PwC made all its employees redundant.
“Although most of LDV’s suppliers will have already provided for the bad debt, this will be of little comfort to a sector that is suffering from a continual erosion of revenues and forward order book visibility,” said John Kelly of Begbies Traynor.
The news comes a week after potential white knight Weststar pulled out of buying the company, saying it couldn’t raise enough cash to complete the transaction.
LDV’s directors had hoped to convince the British government to bail them out with a £60m loan, despite having seen a plea for £45m from Weststar rejected. The Malaysian firm had already secured a £5m bridging loan from the government.
It is understood that Weststar is considering making a new offer for LDV’s best assets later this week.