Scottish furniture supply group H Morris & Company has cut its Glasgow workforce by as much as 30% after facing a write down of around £3m from selling its contract division, according to HeraldScotland.com. The group reportedly lost around £1.7m the previous year from selling its office furniture division.
The newspaper reports that owner Robert Morris cites the pressures of the Far East and China on UK manufacturing as the reason for a drop in sales.
“The whole western world has been hit be a sledgehammer from the Far East and the low-cost countries,” Robert tells HeraldScotland.com. “We can’t buy the material in this country for the same price that they can make the furniture and ship it here. Basically, all of the factories in England have closed up or gone bust.”
The group's remaining activity is now focused on its domestic brands, which include G Plan, Zone, Morris Furniture and Relazateeze.
“We’re much happier where we are,” Robert tells the newspaper. “We’ve had the write downs, we’re still strong balance sheet-wise, and we’re debt free. So you can’t actually want for much more. We have no shareholder that we have to show off to.”
Additionally, H Morris & Company has diversified into horse breeding, in an equestrian centre in Ayrshire which Robert purchased in 2013.
