The Company From 2009
On 5 January 2009, following years of financial problems at group level, and after a share placement failed during the global financial crisis of 2008, Wedgwood was placed into administration on a "going concern" basis, with 1800 employees remaining. On 27 February 2009, Waterford Wedgwood's receiver Deloitte announced that the New York-based private equity firm KPS Capital Partners had purchased "certain Irish and UK assets of Waterford Wedgwood and the assets of several of its Irish and UK subsidiaries" in a transaction expected to completed in March. In March 2009, KPS Capital Partners announced that it had acquired group assets in a range of countries, including the UK, USA and Indonesia, would invest €100m, and move a number of jobs to Asia to cut costs and return the firm to profitability. In a move that had begun under the previous owners, some 1,500 jobs were cut in the U.K., leaving 800 workers in the U.K. producing only the high-end Wedgwood products. KPS Capital Partners has placed Wedgwood into a group of companies known as WWRD, an acronym for "Waterford Wedgwood Royal Doulton."
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