City Link (company)

City Link Limited

Type	Limited company
Industry	Courier
Founded	1969
Headquarters	Coventry, England
Key people	David Smith (Managing Director) Robert Peto (Finance Director)
Products	Freight Forwarding Services Logistics Services
Revenue	£306.9 million GBP(FY 2011)
Owner	Better Capital
Number of employees	2,727
Slogan	Urgent Deadline Deliveries
Website	www.city-link.co.uk

City Link was a British next day courier company based in Coventry, United Kingdom (1969–2014). City Link operated a delivery service in the UK including the Isle of Man from its hub in Coventry in the West Midlands although other offices exist in other areas of the country. On 24 December 2014, the company entered administration. Ernst & Young (EY) was appointed as the administrators and has immediately ceased accepting parcels from customers.

History

City Link was founded in 1969 (as a subsidiary of Orbit Cargo Services Limited). It was created to provide a cross-town transfer service for Red Star Parcels (operated by British Rail). At the time, Red Star Parcels only travelled on direct passenger services, so a sender in Brighton could not despatch a parcel to Norwich, as a transfer had to be undertaken in London between London Victoria station and Liverpool Street station. In addition, the Red Star service was limited to station-to-station only and following increasing demand from its customers, City Link established a UK nationwide network of "Agents" to collect parcels from the local station and deliver to the consignee.

In 1989 the company was acquired by Securiguard Limited. On 20 November 2005 Initial City Link announced that as a part of its expansion programme, they were to ‘buy back’ the franchises.^[1] This was completed in March 2007 with the purchase of Tiger Haulage Ltd, City Link's Welwyn Garden City, Hemel Hempstead, Barking, Birmingham, Worcester, West Bromwich, Reading and High Wycombe franchises. At the time of purchase, Tiger Haulage was the largest franchisee of Initial City Link, operating 9 depots over 4 counties.

Target Express acquisition

Exactly one year after Initial City Link announced its buy back scheme, Initial City Link finished negotiations with the shareholders of Target Express to purchase the company on 20 November 2006.^[2] Target was officially acquired and taken over by Initial City Link on 1 March 2007. As a part of its merger with Target Express, City Link was planning to close 42 of the 110 combined branches in the first half of 2008 to provide a single integrated network. However at the end of February 2008 managing director Petar Cvetkovic announced a suspension of further integration of Target Express depots until January 2009. The merger of the two units proved problematic (particularly due to depots running different computer systems),^[3] damaging profits at parent company Rentokil Initial.^[4] Rentokil turned down several offers for the loss-making unit in 2008, stating that it instead intended to turn around City Link's fortunes.^[5]

In 2011 City Link was still losing money, annual figures released in July show losses growing to £17.8M and revenues down 13.5pc,^[6] and a November 2011 trading statement stated losses of £25M in the first nine months.^[7] Rentokil Initial sold the business to corporate restructuring firm Better Capital in April 2013.^[8]

Administration

Late on 24 December 2014 City Link went into administration and stopped accepting parcels whilst its administrators Ernst & Young carried out an assessment of the company.^[9]

On 25 December 2014, the RMT union was reported to have demanded "urgent talks" with the Government and administrators about the collapse of the company. The government says it is unable to intervene in the administration process, although the business secretary said he would meet the union in the New Year. Labour MP Ann McKechin, a member of the Business Select Committee, said the government "should offer any help that is required" to see if any City Links jobs could be saved.^[10] On 31 December the company announced that 2,356 jobs would be lost, leaving only 370 staff employed.^[11]

The collapse of City Link also left 1500 self-employed drivers out of pocket with no possible recourse due to not having any protections under the law.

A petition was created by the sub contractors to try and get the collapse of City Link debated in the House of Commons.

Rescue offer rejected

BBC news reported on 31 December 2014 that the administrators have rejected an offer from an unnamed consortium, claiming that the possible buyer "offered no money up front and significantly undervalued the assets to be acquired". After confirmation that the rescue had failed, Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT union, said: "Pulling the plug on any efforts to save City Link is a disgraceful and cynical betrayal that will wreck the lives of our members, many of whom are owed thousands of pounds".^[12]

Reports

The Telegraph website reported on 21 March 2015 that "City Link’s creditors are likely to see less than 2p in the pound on any money they are owed". Members of Parliament are expected to publish a report on the impact of City Link’s closure on employment on Monday, 23 March 2015.^[13]

References

External links

• Official website