Workers at the collapsed courier firm City Link are expected to receive redundancy notices on Wednesday, with more than 3,000 jobs at risk as administrators struggle to find a buyer for the business.
Members of the RMT trade union are set to protest outside the company’s head office in Baginton, Coventry, as 2,727 staff and 1,000 self-employed drivers and agency workers await their fate.
Ernst & Young, the administrators for the company who were formally appointed on Christmas Eve, have warned staff to expect “substantial redundancies” at the parcel firm’s depots around the country. A small number are expected to be retained to help deal with the estimated 30,000 parcels still being held at City Link’s depots, all of which are set to remain open until around 6 January.
On Tuesday, rival courier company APC Overnight said it would give priority to City Link staff in filling up to 100 vacancies at its national sorting centre in Cannock.
The RMT has called on the business secretary, Vince Cable, to rescue the firm but John Moulton, the veteran private equity investor who heads City Link’s owner Better Capital, has said the government was aware of the courier’s troubles before Christmas and did not request a meeting to discuss its future. He said the firm needed an injection of about £100m to turn it around.
Better Capital expects to recover about £20m from the failed company, but shares in the listed investment firm fell back this week as investors calculated that its losses would be greater than that.
