Mercer & Hole in at insolvent H-A Interiors

MERCER & HOLE administrators have been called to German design and production company Alkor-Venilia's UK arm, H-A Interiors.

Chris Laughton and Steve Smith, partners at Mercer & Hole, had their appointment fast-tracked to help employees seek redundancy payments.

The German company continues to trade while seeking a buyer and closed the H-A Interiors factory, based in Northumberland, in April.

As staff are still employed by H-A Interiors, they cannot receive statutory redundancy payments or unemployment benefits. They have been unpaid for seven weeks.

The administrators are seeking funds through the Redundancy Payments Service, through which the government pays staff and seeks to recover funds from the new owners or assets sold as part of the administration.

Laughton said: "We were scheduled to be appointed next week but, given the dire circumstances of the employees, we managed to get the decision fast-tracked.

"We will work closely with the administrators in the other jurisdictions to secure a sale to a single investor. Looking at the assets, we are all confident this will be seen as an excellent opportunity for the right business to scale up."

This factory is one of many sites owned by Alkor-Venilia, which entered insolvency processes in Germany in June.