Jobs go as Mountain Buggy moves to China

ROSS GIBLIN/The Dominion Post

NO MORE: Mountain Buggy was previously owned by Tritec. Its manufacturing managing director Charlie Fairbrother is pictured here in 2008.

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Kiwi buggy brand Mountain Buggy will be Chinese-made from November, with 45 staff to lose their jobs at the Lower Hutt factory.

Campbell Gower, chief executive of owner phil&teds, said it would pull out at the end of September, relocating all Mountain Buggy manufacturing to China, where the phil&teds products were made.

Mountain Buggy was previously owned by Tritec, which went into receivership in January and was bought by its Wellington-based competitor. Four months after taking over, Mr Gower said the company had decided the economics at the Seaview plant were impossible.

A significant component of imported material was costing more with a strengthening exchange rate, up nearly 20 per cent since they bought the business.

"It was hard for the former owners to deal with the economic equation and it hasn't been any easier for us."

A handful of the 61 staff at the Seaview factory would shift to phil&teds and up to 12 others would stay with Tritec's seat-manufacturing business, which had been sold, Mr Gower said.

That left about 45 people without jobs. "It sucks. But it's reality."

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union had started negotiations for a redundancy clause in 2007, but had stalled through the financial difficulties because the previous owners, then the bank, and finally receivers PricewaterhouseCoopers failed to get the company to trade well.

PWC had responsibility for the staff and factory until September 30 in a transition agreement with phil&teds, but union spokesman George Collins said neither company was prepared to pay redundancy.

PWC spokesman John Fisk said with phil&teds' intention to shift to China, it was pointless to continue talking about redundancy. "They've had a job for six months longer than they might have."

Hutt Valley Chamber of Commerce chief executive David Kiddey said the move was tough to bear, adding to recent layoffs from Unilever and several smaller companies.

But it was not a surprise. "It's a fact of life that our labour costs are a lot higher than China."

There had always been the chance a foreign company could have bought Tritec in March and shut up shop then. "Everybody breathed a sigh of relief when it was bought locally but there was always the prospect of this happening. Good on phil&teds for trying."

Mr Gower said he had spoken to staff about the possibility two weeks ago and was now helping with job hunting and interview training.