6 ms·

The Rise and Fall of a Vision: Wrightbus Enters Administration

30 points by ubac 7y ago

cs02rm0 7y ago
It seems Brexit is the scapegoat for every failure now.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  "The drastic fall of Sterling, as well as the uncertainty over future trading arrangements with the European Union, have increased both present costs and future risks for the firm. This has made it increasingly hard to win contracts outside of the UK." At the end of the day businesses have higher costs or are leaving the UK because of Brexit. There's no point denying the reality. Nobody can argue that right at this moment Brexit is driving business success. Bank of America spent $400 million to relocate from UK to Ireland. [1] for example. And they're not coming back. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b9d43bba-2f7a-11e9-8744-e7016697f225 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b9d43bba-2f7...
  - EmbarrassedFuel 7y ago
    Don’t take everything at face value: a fall in Sterling necessarily means that an exporters products are cheaper overseas, so should boost sales. Unless their costs were already higher than their revenues, in which case they were doomed anyway. The reason brexit will be bad for exporters is the possible future imposition of tariffs. This hasn’t happened yet, so actually in the short term brexit is relatively good for them. Just to be clear I’m against brexit, however in this case blaming brexit for the failure is wrong.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      Yes, but equally it means that imports are more expensive. We can interpret the statement as implying that the company imports a lot of parts, etc. Let's remember that Ireland uses the Euro so they just need to import from across the border to feel the pinch.
      - racino84 7y ago
        This manufacturer is in Northern Ireland, so they can use Euros if they want anyway. And current plans are for a frictionless border. The argument as Brexit causing it to close is silly, its grossly mismanaged.
      - zelos 7y ago
        If their finished product costs less than its constituent parts, they're kind of doing manufacturing wrong.
    - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
      This hasn’t happened yet, so actually in the short term brexit is relatively good for them. Except that isn't born out by the figures, UK manufacturing is weakening at the moment. The pound might be delivering higher profits on foreign trade but it isn't delivering more orders yet.
  - kmlx 7y ago
    they didn't go thru with it. like most other banks, they were in fact waiting for handouts. some countries were actually hoodwinked into giving them. they're currently hiring all across the world, including the UK: https://careers.bankofamerica.com/search-jobs.aspx?c=&r=emea https://careers.bankofamerica.com/search-jobs.aspx?c=&r=emea
    - Jonnax 7y ago
      https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1O20PD https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/... Says they completed it in December with 125 job moves. They don't need to fire everyone in the UK to change where their money moves.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    >At the end of the day businesses have higher costs or are leaving the UK because of Brexit. Though I personally (and not being involved in it directly or indirectly) think Brexit is essentially a "stupid" move by the UK, I don't think that it - in itself - should cause any particularly dramatic change, after all the world worked fine even before the European Economic Community and the consequent easyness in import/export within the EU. Surely there will be some changes in procedures and probably some added bureaucracy but nothing that cannot be taken care of. From experience, in the '70's and '80's exporting from Italy to the UK involved having a "special" status as "registered exporter" at the Ministry and filling a number of Customs and Bank forms (only for the record and as a curiosity, some of these forms were needed in some 10 copies and at the time the "most powerful" electric typewriter we had available could make at the most 6 or 7 carbon copies, so each form was typed twice). I have the feling that Brexit is used as a sort of scapegoat or that linking it directly to the bad results of companies (most probably due to a number of different reasons) is a way to attempt influencing the people to be against it.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      The most recent round of proposals involved filling in customs forms for moving goods within the UK (to Northern Ireland). Not only is it a cost, but it's an uncertain one that's impossible to properly prepare for. Especially when the government keeps threatening "no deal".
  - racino84 7y ago
    > Bank of America spent $400 million to relocate from UK to Ireland. [1] for example. And they're not coming back. I had no idea Bank of America closed its Canary Wharf London office and will "never come back" from Ireland.
    - nbevans 7y ago
      They haven't closed it. My friend works for them in the City. These banks aren't going anywhere.
      - racino84 7y ago
        /s
- cm2187 7y ago
  You can bet it will be, even though we are at the end of an economic cycle, with half of the world already in recession or on the verge of a recession, and the other half dangerously heading that way.
ch_123 7y ago
Lots of mention of Brexit in this article, and not many mentions of the fact that the owners of Wrightbus were pumping huge amounts of money into religious organizations, as well as giving themselves large bonuses while _at the same time_ laying people off and declaring large losses. I'm not saying that business owners should not be allowed to donate to religious groups, but when the donations in a given year are greater than the amount of money the company is losing, there is something seriously wrong. (source https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wrightbus-workers-angry-at-donations-to-evangelical-church-1.4032990 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wr...)
- fyfy18 7y ago
  That should be true for any charitable donation - I'm surprised it isn't already. I wonder if the directors could face loosing their limited liability for this.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  "Its founder, director and senior pastor is Jeffrey William Wright, known as “Pastor Jeff”, who is the son of the founder of Wrightbus, William Wright. Pastor Jeff is also the majority shareholder in Cornerstone." This kind of thing really should be illegal.
- earnubs 7y ago
  > In 2018 it reported a loss of £1.7m, citing a difficult UK bus market and near non-existent overseas sales aggravated by Brexit. https://www.londonreconnections.com/2019/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-vision-wrightbus-enters-administration/ https://www.londonreconnections.com/2019/the-rise-and-fall-o... > It [Church set up by Jeff Wright] received more than £15m from the firm in recent years, most of which was donated while the group was profitable. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49869944 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49869944 I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain how Brexit was the cause of Wright's downfall, especially given Brexit hasn't happened.
  - earnubs 7y ago
    > On top of this, comes the inescapable elephant that is Brexit. This may only be one of the factors affecting Wrightbus, but it is arguably the crippling final blow. Wrightbus is a Northern Ireland based supplier, dependent on parts and orders from the EU and beyond, a strong UK economy, and a stable period of national and local government. All of those pillars have been cracked by Brexit. None of those things have changed, or been changed by Brexit in this timeframe.
rathinmadhu 7y ago
Awesome
vr46 7y ago
The new Routemaster is really terrible in a few important ways, very cramped with zero ventilation making it an oven in the summer, although the two sets of stairs and three doors makes boarding slightly better - yet encourages fare-dodging. A classic vanity project.
- q3k 7y ago
  > although the two sets of stairs and three doors makes boarding slightly better - yet encourages fare-dodging. A classic vanity project. I don't get it. Many other cities have bus systems where you can enter in any door and don't have to present any ticket to anyone. Why doesn't this work in London or Dublin? Is this even a real problem, or is it just scaremongering? From my experience in the Dunlin, the choke point of having everyone either validate (or talk to the driver) when entering a bus was _insane_.
  - vr46 7y ago
    The bus is part of a system, as you said, but it's only the visible entry point and when the system is designed around handling individual fares, flat rates, children, free fares for students and the elderly, as well as making it fair and equitable (and relying very much on fares for funding), then you have a bus which must work with that system. Some cities rely on conductors or a vast fleet of ticket inspectors, but London's public transport system might be the biggest and most extensive in the world, and some things don't work well at that scale.
    - q3k 7y ago
      I was hoping for actual studies showing that regular fare dodging is an actual problem in London or in large bus fleets in general. The honor system + occasional inspection seems to work pretty much everywhere else I've visited, but again, I'd like to see some numbers on this.
tim333 7y ago
I think it's a shame they didn't leave the back open so you could hop on and off like the old Routmasters. I guess in the health and saftey age you can't risk someone falling over but the old ones were really handy for places like Oxford St where the traffic does like 4mph.
- alex_duf 7y ago
  People walk their child with a leach nowadays, I doubt anyone would feel safe if that was still opened at the back as you metionned.
forinti 7y ago
Double deckers are awesome. I don't understand why there aren't more of them in the world: double the density of commuters should be desirable in congested cities.
- tom_mellior 7y ago
  Many big cities that would be eligible for double deckers already have trams. And I think there is a problem with the height of the double decker vs. the typical height of overhead lines for trams.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    America seems in general to have a lot of stuff hanging over roads - like traffic lights, signs, electricity lines, phone lines - thing that the UK puts to the side of the road or buries underneath it. Maybe it's because American roads are wider so traffic lights at the side of a six lane road don't really work any more and they have to hang them up for the middle lanes to be able to see them.
- Symbiote 7y ago
  If you don't have a 4x4 Chelsea Tractor lobby, you can just use bendy buses. Boarding and alighting is much faster, and there's more space for pushchairs etc.
  - johnnycab 7y ago
    >If you don't have a 4x4 Chelsea Tractor lobby, you can just use bendy buses. I fail to see the specific connection between the SUV drivers and bendy buses, as these articulated buses were operational on only 12 routes out of 700+ due to their restrictions. If the implication is that these buses were taken out of circulation due to a vocal lobby of car owners of certain luxury marques, living in salubrious boroughs, then it is a preposterous suggestion. The real reason is that this bus was a death machine ─ snaking along the streets ─ killing cyclists, bikers, pedestrians and motorists alike. Amongst a catalogue of flaws, ranging from being prone to catching fire to acquiring the label of 'free bus' by fare dodgers; it's only saving grace in the near-decade long operation was being wheelchair-friendly. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/bendy-buses-the-fatal-facts-6588794.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/bendy-buses-the-fatal-facts-...
calewis 7y ago
This project was doomed from the start, and was yet another vanity project for Boris. Great Gaurdian article which references the design flaws from the get-go: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2016/jul/27/bikes-buses-bridges-boris-johnsons-biggest-design-blunders https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design... As I understand, from a friend at TFL, they could have replaced the whole fleet of buses with electric ones for the same price as this vanity disaster.
- reallydontask 7y ago
  > As I understand, from a friend at TFL, they could have replaced the whole fleet of buses with electric ones for the same price as this vanity disaster. This is interesting. Any published analysis, articles. It would be an interesting read for sure
  - calewis 7y ago
    Sadly it was an internal consultation that, unsurprisingly, wasn’t published. I think there could be good grounds for an FOI request though.
safgasCVS 7y ago
The Sterling has fallen by more than any trade tariff that I know of (at least for any sizeable market where I’ve seen approx 10%) so whenever I read a business blaming their own failings on Brexit I just can’t take it seriously. I believe service businesses could rightly claim Brexit as a concern but a manufacturing business would benefit more from a falling pound
- reallydontask 7y ago
  Isn't the problem that they are sourcing materials and parts from abroad, and thus affected negatively by the decline?
tempodox 7y ago
At least London continues being a city. New York has long since given up on that. It's just a collection of car parks and business locations now (including the overpriced apartments).

30 points by ubac 7y ago

cs02rm0 7y ago

It seems Brexit is the scapegoat for every failure now.

Jonnax 7y ago
"The drastic fall of Sterling, as well as the uncertainty over future trading arrangements with the European Union, have increased both present costs and future risks for the firm. This has made it increasingly hard to win contracts outside of the UK." At the end of the day businesses have higher costs or are leaving the UK because of Brexit. There's no point denying the reality. Nobody can argue that right at this moment Brexit is driving business success. Bank of America spent $400 million to relocate from UK to Ireland. [1] for example. And they're not coming back. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b9d43bba-2f7a-11e9-8744-e7016697f225 https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/b9d43bba-2f7...
- EmbarrassedFuel 7y ago
  Don’t take everything at face value: a fall in Sterling necessarily means that an exporters products are cheaper overseas, so should boost sales. Unless their costs were already higher than their revenues, in which case they were doomed anyway. The reason brexit will be bad for exporters is the possible future imposition of tariffs. This hasn’t happened yet, so actually in the short term brexit is relatively good for them. Just to be clear I’m against brexit, however in this case blaming brexit for the failure is wrong.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    Yes, but equally it means that imports are more expensive. We can interpret the statement as implying that the company imports a lot of parts, etc. Let's remember that Ireland uses the Euro so they just need to import from across the border to feel the pinch.
    - racino84 7y ago
      This manufacturer is in Northern Ireland, so they can use Euros if they want anyway. And current plans are for a frictionless border. The argument as Brexit causing it to close is silly, its grossly mismanaged.
    - zelos 7y ago
      If their finished product costs less than its constituent parts, they're kind of doing manufacturing wrong.
  - tonyedgecombe 7y ago
    This hasn’t happened yet, so actually in the short term brexit is relatively good for them. Except that isn't born out by the figures, UK manufacturing is weakening at the moment. The pound might be delivering higher profits on foreign trade but it isn't delivering more orders yet.
- kmlx 7y ago
  they didn't go thru with it. like most other banks, they were in fact waiting for handouts. some countries were actually hoodwinked into giving them. they're currently hiring all across the world, including the UK: https://careers.bankofamerica.com/search-jobs.aspx?c=&r=emea https://careers.bankofamerica.com/search-jobs.aspx?c=&r=emea
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1O20PD https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/... Says they completed it in December with 125 job moves. They don't need to fire everyone in the UK to change where their money moves.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  >At the end of the day businesses have higher costs or are leaving the UK because of Brexit. Though I personally (and not being involved in it directly or indirectly) think Brexit is essentially a "stupid" move by the UK, I don't think that it - in itself - should cause any particularly dramatic change, after all the world worked fine even before the European Economic Community and the consequent easyness in import/export within the EU. Surely there will be some changes in procedures and probably some added bureaucracy but nothing that cannot be taken care of. From experience, in the '70's and '80's exporting from Italy to the UK involved having a "special" status as "registered exporter" at the Ministry and filling a number of Customs and Bank forms (only for the record and as a curiosity, some of these forms were needed in some 10 copies and at the time the "most powerful" electric typewriter we had available could make at the most 6 or 7 carbon copies, so each form was typed twice). I have the feling that Brexit is used as a sort of scapegoat or that linking it directly to the bad results of companies (most probably due to a number of different reasons) is a way to attempt influencing the people to be against it.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    The most recent round of proposals involved filling in customs forms for moving goods within the UK (to Northern Ireland). Not only is it a cost, but it's an uncertain one that's impossible to properly prepare for. Especially when the government keeps threatening "no deal".
- racino84 7y ago
  > Bank of America spent $400 million to relocate from UK to Ireland. [1] for example. And they're not coming back. I had no idea Bank of America closed its Canary Wharf London office and will "never come back" from Ireland.
  - nbevans 7y ago
    They haven't closed it. My friend works for them in the City. These banks aren't going anywhere.
    - racino84 7y ago
      /s
cm2187 7y ago
You can bet it will be, even though we are at the end of an economic cycle, with half of the world already in recession or on the verge of a recession, and the other half dangerously heading that way.

ch_123 7y ago

Lots of mention of Brexit in this article, and not many mentions of the fact that the owners of Wrightbus were pumping huge amounts of money into religious organizations, as well as giving themselves large bonuses while _at the same time_ laying people off and declaring large losses. I'm not saying that business owners should not be allowed to donate to religious groups, but when the donations in a given year are greater than the amount of money the company is losing, there is something seriously wrong. (source https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wrightbus-workers-angry-at-donations-to-evangelical-church-1.4032990 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/former-wr...)

fyfy18 7y ago
That should be true for any charitable donation - I'm surprised it isn't already. I wonder if the directors could face loosing their limited liability for this.
Jonnax 7y ago
"Its founder, director and senior pastor is Jeffrey William Wright, known as “Pastor Jeff”, who is the son of the founder of Wrightbus, William Wright. Pastor Jeff is also the majority shareholder in Cornerstone." This kind of thing really should be illegal.
earnubs 7y ago
> In 2018 it reported a loss of £1.7m, citing a difficult UK bus market and near non-existent overseas sales aggravated by Brexit. https://www.londonreconnections.com/2019/the-rise-and-fall-of-a-vision-wrightbus-enters-administration/ https://www.londonreconnections.com/2019/the-rise-and-fall-o... > It [Church set up by Jeff Wright] received more than £15m from the firm in recent years, most of which was donated while the group was profitable. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49869944 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49869944 I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain how Brexit was the cause of Wright's downfall, especially given Brexit hasn't happened.
- earnubs 7y ago
  > On top of this, comes the inescapable elephant that is Brexit. This may only be one of the factors affecting Wrightbus, but it is arguably the crippling final blow. Wrightbus is a Northern Ireland based supplier, dependent on parts and orders from the EU and beyond, a strong UK economy, and a stable period of national and local government. All of those pillars have been cracked by Brexit. None of those things have changed, or been changed by Brexit in this timeframe.

rathinmadhu 7y ago

Awesome

vr46 7y ago

The new Routemaster is really terrible in a few important ways, very cramped with zero ventilation making it an oven in the summer, although the two sets of stairs and three doors makes boarding slightly better - yet encourages fare-dodging. A classic vanity project.

q3k 7y ago
> although the two sets of stairs and three doors makes boarding slightly better - yet encourages fare-dodging. A classic vanity project. I don't get it. Many other cities have bus systems where you can enter in any door and don't have to present any ticket to anyone. Why doesn't this work in London or Dublin? Is this even a real problem, or is it just scaremongering? From my experience in the Dunlin, the choke point of having everyone either validate (or talk to the driver) when entering a bus was _insane_.
- vr46 7y ago
  The bus is part of a system, as you said, but it's only the visible entry point and when the system is designed around handling individual fares, flat rates, children, free fares for students and the elderly, as well as making it fair and equitable (and relying very much on fares for funding), then you have a bus which must work with that system. Some cities rely on conductors or a vast fleet of ticket inspectors, but London's public transport system might be the biggest and most extensive in the world, and some things don't work well at that scale.
  - q3k 7y ago
    I was hoping for actual studies showing that regular fare dodging is an actual problem in London or in large bus fleets in general. The honor system + occasional inspection seems to work pretty much everywhere else I've visited, but again, I'd like to see some numbers on this.

tim333 7y ago

I think it's a shame they didn't leave the back open so you could hop on and off like the old Routmasters. I guess in the health and saftey age you can't risk someone falling over but the old ones were really handy for places like Oxford St where the traffic does like 4mph.

alex_duf 7y ago
People walk their child with a leach nowadays, I doubt anyone would feel safe if that was still opened at the back as you metionned.

forinti 7y ago

Double deckers are awesome. I don't understand why there aren't more of them in the world: double the density of commuters should be desirable in congested cities.

tom_mellior 7y ago
Many big cities that would be eligible for double deckers already have trams. And I think there is a problem with the height of the double decker vs. the typical height of overhead lines for trams.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  America seems in general to have a lot of stuff hanging over roads - like traffic lights, signs, electricity lines, phone lines - thing that the UK puts to the side of the road or buries underneath it. Maybe it's because American roads are wider so traffic lights at the side of a six lane road don't really work any more and they have to hang them up for the middle lanes to be able to see them.
Symbiote 7y ago
If you don't have a 4x4 Chelsea Tractor lobby, you can just use bendy buses. Boarding and alighting is much faster, and there's more space for pushchairs etc.
- johnnycab 7y ago
  >If you don't have a 4x4 Chelsea Tractor lobby, you can just use bendy buses. I fail to see the specific connection between the SUV drivers and bendy buses, as these articulated buses were operational on only 12 routes out of 700+ due to their restrictions. If the implication is that these buses were taken out of circulation due to a vocal lobby of car owners of certain luxury marques, living in salubrious boroughs, then it is a preposterous suggestion. The real reason is that this bus was a death machine ─ snaking along the streets ─ killing cyclists, bikers, pedestrians and motorists alike. Amongst a catalogue of flaws, ranging from being prone to catching fire to acquiring the label of 'free bus' by fare dodgers; it's only saving grace in the near-decade long operation was being wheelchair-friendly. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/bendy-buses-the-fatal-facts-6588794.html https://www.standard.co.uk/news/bendy-buses-the-fatal-facts-...

calewis 7y ago

This project was doomed from the start, and was yet another vanity project for Boris. Great Gaurdian article which references the design flaws from the get-go: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2016/jul/27/bikes-buses-bridges-boris-johnsons-biggest-design-blunders https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design... As I understand, from a friend at TFL, they could have replaced the whole fleet of buses with electric ones for the same price as this vanity disaster.

reallydontask 7y ago
> As I understand, from a friend at TFL, they could have replaced the whole fleet of buses with electric ones for the same price as this vanity disaster. This is interesting. Any published analysis, articles. It would be an interesting read for sure
- calewis 7y ago
  Sadly it was an internal consultation that, unsurprisingly, wasn’t published. I think there could be good grounds for an FOI request though.

safgasCVS 7y ago

The Sterling has fallen by more than any trade tariff that I know of (at least for any sizeable market where I’ve seen approx 10%) so whenever I read a business blaming their own failings on Brexit I just can’t take it seriously. I believe service businesses could rightly claim Brexit as a concern but a manufacturing business would benefit more from a falling pound

reallydontask 7y ago
Isn't the problem that they are sourcing materials and parts from abroad, and thus affected negatively by the decline?

tempodox 7y ago

At least London continues being a city. New York has long since given up on that. It's just a collection of car parks and business locations now (including the overpriced apartments).