UK jewelry maker crashes into administration after 140 years | UK | News | EUROtoday

A UK jewelry maker has collapsed into administration after being in enterprise since 1886. Family-owned agency W H Darby was based by Alfred Horatio Darby to provide medals, badges, die-sinks, and steel blocks used for jewelry and cash.

Administrators from enterprise restoration specialists, Moorfields Advisory, have been appointed by the High Court to handle the enterprise, which relies in Birmingham‘s well-known Jewellery Quarter. It means the enterprise can nonetheless commerce, however administration management has handed from the corporate’s administrators to directors.

W H Darby manufactures merchandise for fraternal societies, together with the Masons, Oddfellows, Probus and Rotary. Its vary additionally consists of badges of workplace, brooch bars, stick pins, cufflinks and tie slides.

According to the corporate’s web site, W H Darby Ltd diversified from medals into sports activities trophies after World War Two, sparking “substantial growth” within the Fifties, 60s and 70s.

The firm was handed to Alfred’s granddaughter, Salie, and her husband, David, in 1983, when it first began buying and selling beneath the title W H Darby Ltd.

Outcompeted by Chinese sports activities trophies, the agency specialised in manufacturing medals and enamel badges. When China entered the enamel badge market, the corporate was compelled to adapt once more.

The agency turned to the manufacture of insignia, profitable a contract in 1991 to exchange these stolen by the Iraqis within the First Gulf War from the Kuwaiti royal household.

Steve and Linda Hobbis purchased the corporate in March 2005, specializing in bespoke jewelry, medals, insignia and state presents. They are listed as the present homeowners on W H Darby’s web site.

Moorfields Advisory and W H Darby have been approached for remark.

News of W H Darby getting into administration comes after one other Birmingham-based jewelry enterprise collapsed.

Andra Jewels Ltd went into administration on February 12, having traded since 1959.

The firm confronted a number of points final 12 months, together with a drop in turnover, HMRC arrears, adjustments to credit score phrases with main suppliers and volatility in gold and silver costs.

Joint directors from Moorfields managed to promote the corporate’s website in Hastings, saving 41 jobs. But no purchaser might be discovered for the agency’s loss-making Birmingham website, resulting in 11 redundancies.

Official figures from the Insolvency Service confirmed the variety of firm administrations jumped by 41% to 151 between December and January. This was additionally 14% greater than a 12 months earlier.

The numbers led some consultants to ask whether or not misery and insolvencies would proceed to rise amid the pressures going through companies within the UK.