Beleaguered Cattles shedding more jobs

John Collingridge City Reporter

EMBATTLED sub-prime lender Cattles warned another 450 jobs face the axe under plans to close about 70 branches and collection units.

The Batley-based group said the cuts at its core Welcome Finance business were an inevitable consequence of winding down its 1.9bn loan book.

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Cattles lent money to people with poor credit ratings, but last year uncovered a huge accounting failure which hid a mountain of bad debts.

The group has been unable to come up with a viable plan that would allow it to resume lending, and is focusing on clawing back loans to repay creditors.

The latest threatened cuts take the total job losses by Cattles to about 2,300 since uncertainty over funding forced it to start axing jobs 13 months ago.

Cattles, which has also sold businesses and sacked senior executives, expects the wind-down of its loan book to take two to three years during which time more cuts are inevitable.

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The news follows last September’s announcement that it would close 30 Welcome branches and axe 510 staff. It will have about 2,500 staff once the latest cull is complete.

Chairman Margaret Young said: “These proposals to further streamline the Welcome organisational structure have been put forward after an extensive review and careful consideration.

“We believe they are essential to Cattles achieving a more cost- efficient business model which mirrors the reducing size of the group’s loan book.”

Cattles continues to trade its doorstep lending arm Shopacheck and debt collection division the Lewis Group, with a view to developing them.

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Accounts for the nine months to September 30 last year highlighted the dire financial position of the business, with a loss before tax of 347.4m. Its 1.9bn in loans and advances to customers was exceeded by gross borrowings amounting to 2.7bn.

It declined to give a regional breakdown of the job losses.

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