Birmingham metalworkers Savekers in administration
Historic Birmingham fixtures firm Savekers has been forced into administration by a collapse in orders – despite a survival loan from the taxpayer in December.
Savekers, based in Perry Barr, has already made 34 out of its workforce of 60 redundant. But administrators said there was still hope that the business could be salvaged.
Savekers primarily makes architectural metalwork and shop fittings, and its products are popular with offices, hotels, bars and restaurants, shops, banks, building societies and post offices.
But the £4 million business had sales reduced significantly last year as the economic downturn began to bite, and in December it had to approach AWM’s Advantage Transition Bridge Fund for a £250,000 loan.
It has gone into administration, with John Kelly and James Martin of the Birmingham office of recovery specialists Begbies Traynor appointed to look after its affairs.
Chief executive Dani Saveker said the collapse in orders, particularly in the retail sector, had been a hammer blow.
She said: “Our main market sectors are construction, retail and leisure, all of which have been hit. We successfully underwent a stringent due diligence process to secure a £250,000 loan with every hope of this helping the business. But the incoming orders suddenly dropped meaning that our hopes to trade through the credit crisis were lost.”
The firm was “working closely with our established customers to maintain a service to them while we talk to interested parties with the hope of a sale”.
Mr Kelly confirmed that Savekers Limited was continuing to trade as a going concern while Begbies looked for a buyer. He said: “We are very keen to hear from interested parties and there has already been some interest. Savekers is a respected name and has excellent facilities.”
Mr Kelly said that while the company had deliberately tried to operate on the basis of “modest sales projections” even these had just not materialised.
The company, which once employed more than 100, was founded in 1903 by Ms Saveker’s great grandfather Thomas Saveker.
Ms Saveker joined in 1994 and became chief executive in 2002. Her third cousin, T Martin Saveker, is chairman and the family are the shareholders.
Savekers Limited has a long and distinguished history. During the Second World War it produced 75 different parts for Spitfire fighter planes, more than 280 parts for Lancaster bombers, parts for Sten guns and more than a quarter of a million stirrup pumps.
The factory survived the war almost unscathed, although it had many close escapes. On one occasion two incendiary bombs fell on the plating shop. One went straight into a vat and the other bounced off a roof beam and then into the vat, both being extinguished by the vat’s contents.
A high explosive bomb struck close to a sunken air raid shelter in the factory yard but failed to go off. The next night another was heard to fall nearby and both bombs exploded; fortunately the area had been evacuated and no one was hurt. But bowed metal window frames facing the crater remained as a reminder until the building was demolished in 1998.
The Advantage Transition Bridge Fund helped save a number of companies at the height of the Rover crisis and was re-introduced to combat the recession.
