Freight News

Updated: City Link to make over 2,350 staff redundant

[ December 31, 2014   //   Chris ]

The BBC reports that parcels delivery company City Link is to make over 85% of its staff redundant, after the firm went into administration on 24 December. The company, sold by previous owners Rentokil Initial to restructuring specialist Better Capital in April 2013, called in administrators Ernst & Young on Christmas Eve in the face of “substantial losses”.

The timing of the announcement was widely criticised by trade unions and some sections of the media.

It stopped accepting parcels at its 56 UK depots and, on 31 December, a total of 2,356 job losses were announced, with just over 370 staff retained to deal with parcels still in depots and help run down the business.

The administrators added that an unnamed consortium’s offer to buy the company was not acceptable, as it offered no money up front and significantly undervalued the assets.

Although primarily involved in the UK domestic parcels market, CityLink had been developing its international services through a partnership with bpost international, the international business unit of the national postal service of Belgium.

Tags: CityLink