Online cycling retailer Wiggle-ChainReactionCycles has not been slow off the mark in making the first tranche of staff redundant, including in Belfast, after the wider network of businesses it is part of ran into extreme financial problems.
The upside is that there has been interest from several parties about a possible sale of the group, after it was placed into administration and and offered for sale. ChainReactionCycles began in the 1980s as a small bike shop in Ballynure, Co Antrim, and still has a large base in Belfast.
Over 100 people have now been let go – one in six of the work force – amid uncertainty around how many other workers may also lose their jobs before, or even after, the sale of the business.
FRP Advisory were appointed as administrators and has confirmed the redundancies in a statement.
“The Joint Administrators are proposing to launch a sale process for WiggleCRC and have already received interest from several parties,” it said. “Regrettably, the financial position of the business means that it has been necessary to make a number of redundancies to allow the business to continue to trade in readiness of the proposed sales process.
“In total 105 people have been made redundant, with the remaining c. 500 staff retained to support the operation of the business. This decision was not taken lightly, and we will provide all affected employees with support in making claims to the redundancy payments service.”
Of those made redundant, 30 of the job losses were in Belfast, 55 in Portsmouth, 13 in Wolverhampton and 7 in Edinburgh. Most of the 105 redundancies were at Wiggle, where 70 employees have been let go, while 28 were in ChainReactionCycles and 7 in the distributor business, Hotlines.
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