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Fiege Merlin 'is secure' following restructuring
Page 7
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GERMAN-OWNED white goods distribution specialist liege Merlin has played down speculation about its financial status following a restructuring exercise in which its holding company placed into receivership.
Fiege Merlin was created in 1999 following the take-over of Westbury-based Merlin Distribution by German logistics giant Fiege.
Since then Fiege Merlin has controlled the day-to-day operations with Fiege Merlin (Holdings) as its parent company.
This in turn had a complex ownership structure with three sets of shares, a number of which were owned by Luxembourg-based investment funds.
According to Stephen Barter, Fiege's strategic development director, the structure was hindering its expansion plans.
He explains: "We have been expanding as a business, particularly in the last 6-9 months, which has cost us. Further expansion will take further cash and the business as it was did not have sufficient funds to do that.
"The status of the old holding company was dragging us back and preventing us from expanding," he adds.
A new holding company has now been created which has bought Fiege Merlin. It is under direct control of the Fiege group in Germany, which has promised to inject cash into the business.
The last available accounts for the now defunct holding company, ending December 2002, show that it made a loss of around £2.7m on a turnover of £63m—mainly due to write-offs of goodwill. During the same period Fiege Merlin made a profit of f1.5m.
The company is now based in Milton Keynes and handles distribution for a number of household names, including Electrolux and Neff