4 ms·

> 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.londonreconnecti

> 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.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Sterling has fallen because of Brexit. This increases the cost of importing parts, etc. from foreign suppliers. Brexit was also expected to have already occurred so customers may have taken a cautious approach regarding orders that may have spanned Brexit occurring. I guess there is also the issue of maintenance and sourcing parts from them during the life-time of the busses. It is not unreasonable to accept that Brexit may have caused customers to conclude that it was safer to pick other suppliers for the time being.
  - earnubs 7y ago
    Currencies rise and fall, the cost of Al (in the UK) was more expensive in 2010 than it is now. (And if you're a buyer outside the UK the fall of sterling would be a good thing, no?) I'm having a hard time getting past the relative difference between the losses and the donations to Green Pastures, to blaming Brexit.
- michaelt 7y ago
  If you’re an investor making a 5 year investment, or a foreign customer making an order for delivery over a year and spare parts for years thereafter, the levels of tariffs are pretty important, no?
  - earnubs 7y ago
    If you make a deal to buy a bus (or 1000) today, what tariff would you be incurring as a result of Brexit? And if we're post Brexit, what tariff is the UK going to impose on a UK manufacturer that kills it's business?
    - cjrp 7y ago
      On that purchase, nothing. On future buses (when you expand your fleet), or on spare parts for routine maintenance: unknown tariff. Business don't like unknowns.
    - onion2k 7y ago
      If you make a deal to buy a bus (or 1000) today, what tariff would you be incurring as a result of Brexit? None. There would be no tariff at the moment. Yay! But... if you buy 1000 buses you don't pay for them right now unless you're a crazy person. You pay for them in the future, and there might be a tariff then. And if we're post Brexit, what tariff is the UK going to impose on a UK manufacturer that kills it's business? If the UK leaves without a deal then the WTO tariffs are applied instead of the zero-rated EU trade zone agreements that are in place right now. For 'light commercial vehicles' that tariff varies from 10-22%. In other words, a UK bus manufacturer will never sell a bus in the EU ever again as long as the WTO rules are in place. The good thing is that the withdrawal agreement or No Deal brexit is only the first step on the long and arduous journey that is Brexit. We would work to negotiate a new trade deal either with the EU or with each individual member. So, hopefully, that tariff wouldn't apply for ever. Eventually we'd be able to sell buses in the EU again, assuming the manufacturers manage to survive that long. It's probably that they'd move their businesses to the EU before that though, and employ EU citizens instead and pay tax to the new country the business resides in. It's not good for the UK.
    - 7y ago
alehul 7y ago
> Today, it shares the complex ‘just in time’ outsourcing and parts delivery model seen in the world of car manufacture. 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. - low-valued GBP increases costs of parts from abroad - uncertain trading agreements increases risk, likely increases costs higher - uncertainty also decreases ability to win international contracts
- Gravityloss 7y ago
  Wouldn't it make exporting a lot easier, since you can sell at a lower price than competitors?
  - joveian 7y ago
    I didn't see numbers but IIUC a major issue was that they had a generally bad reputation and did most of their sales in the UK. It sounds like they priced in UKP. Others maybe considered it an opportunity, however as part of the looting the owners set up a different company that owned the land. That company was not being sold and demanded a fairly high rent, so the two potential buyers decided to pass at the last minute. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49854380 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49854380 It looks like they did get a deal once they agreed to sell the land and may be up and running again soon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50143581 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50143581 The real issue here was the company being looted by the owners and brexit at most made it harder for them to continue looting. The submitted article is obviously completely ignoring the main issues. There are probably better descriptions of the real issues around, but the best overview I saw (not at all a neutral source but with sources for most claims): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1175358929162907648.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1175358929162907648.html Or see the BBC coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c2y152g95yxt/wrightbus-administration https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c2y152g95yxt/wrightbus-adm... I saw a couple of those links from discussions on Slugger O'Toole that have some good comments but rather low signal/noise ratio for someone just interested in this issue. https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/28/the-problem-with-earthly-blind-faith/ https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/28/the-problem-with-earthl... https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/25/1200-jobs-lost-as-wrightbus-enters-administration/ https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/25/1200-jobs-lost-as-wrigh...
pjc50 7y ago
Brexit sits in limbo. Either it won't happen, which gets more likely as time goes by, or the government will do something extraordinarily stupid and put a border back between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Arguably one of the big impacts of Brexit is that the government no longer has or is capable of any other policy. Perhaps they could have attempted a rescue. Or a clawback of the donations (see Sir Philip Green and the BHS pension fund). But the Westminster government is crippled by its own incompetence, and Stormont has been absent for three years. It reconvened very briefly on Monday in an attempt to stop the abortion law in Northern Ireland being brought up to date (because that's obviously the most important thing facing NI, right?), but that fizzled out.

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.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
Sterling has fallen because of Brexit. This increases the cost of importing parts, etc. from foreign suppliers. Brexit was also expected to have already occurred so customers may have taken a cautious approach regarding orders that may have spanned Brexit occurring. I guess there is also the issue of maintenance and sourcing parts from them during the life-time of the busses. It is not unreasonable to accept that Brexit may have caused customers to conclude that it was safer to pick other suppliers for the time being.
- earnubs 7y ago
  Currencies rise and fall, the cost of Al (in the UK) was more expensive in 2010 than it is now. (And if you're a buyer outside the UK the fall of sterling would be a good thing, no?) I'm having a hard time getting past the relative difference between the losses and the donations to Green Pastures, to blaming Brexit.
michaelt 7y ago
If you’re an investor making a 5 year investment, or a foreign customer making an order for delivery over a year and spare parts for years thereafter, the levels of tariffs are pretty important, no?
- earnubs 7y ago
  If you make a deal to buy a bus (or 1000) today, what tariff would you be incurring as a result of Brexit? And if we're post Brexit, what tariff is the UK going to impose on a UK manufacturer that kills it's business?
  - cjrp 7y ago
    On that purchase, nothing. On future buses (when you expand your fleet), or on spare parts for routine maintenance: unknown tariff. Business don't like unknowns.
  - onion2k 7y ago
    If you make a deal to buy a bus (or 1000) today, what tariff would you be incurring as a result of Brexit? None. There would be no tariff at the moment. Yay! But... if you buy 1000 buses you don't pay for them right now unless you're a crazy person. You pay for them in the future, and there might be a tariff then. And if we're post Brexit, what tariff is the UK going to impose on a UK manufacturer that kills it's business? If the UK leaves without a deal then the WTO tariffs are applied instead of the zero-rated EU trade zone agreements that are in place right now. For 'light commercial vehicles' that tariff varies from 10-22%. In other words, a UK bus manufacturer will never sell a bus in the EU ever again as long as the WTO rules are in place. The good thing is that the withdrawal agreement or No Deal brexit is only the first step on the long and arduous journey that is Brexit. We would work to negotiate a new trade deal either with the EU or with each individual member. So, hopefully, that tariff wouldn't apply for ever. Eventually we'd be able to sell buses in the EU again, assuming the manufacturers manage to survive that long. It's probably that they'd move their businesses to the EU before that though, and employ EU citizens instead and pay tax to the new country the business resides in. It's not good for the UK.
  - 7y ago

alehul 7y ago

> Today, it shares the complex ‘just in time’ outsourcing and parts delivery model seen in the world of car manufacture. 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. - low-valued GBP increases costs of parts from abroad - uncertain trading agreements increases risk, likely increases costs higher - uncertainty also decreases ability to win international contracts

Gravityloss 7y ago
Wouldn't it make exporting a lot easier, since you can sell at a lower price than competitors?
- joveian 7y ago
  I didn't see numbers but IIUC a major issue was that they had a generally bad reputation and did most of their sales in the UK. It sounds like they priced in UKP. Others maybe considered it an opportunity, however as part of the looting the owners set up a different company that owned the land. That company was not being sold and demanded a fairly high rent, so the two potential buyers decided to pass at the last minute. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49854380 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-49854380 It looks like they did get a deal once they agreed to sell the land and may be up and running again soon: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50143581 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50143581 The real issue here was the company being looted by the owners and brexit at most made it harder for them to continue looting. The submitted article is obviously completely ignoring the main issues. There are probably better descriptions of the real issues around, but the best overview I saw (not at all a neutral source but with sources for most claims): https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1175358929162907648.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1175358929162907648.html Or see the BBC coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c2y152g95yxt/wrightbus-administration https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c2y152g95yxt/wrightbus-adm... I saw a couple of those links from discussions on Slugger O'Toole that have some good comments but rather low signal/noise ratio for someone just interested in this issue. https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/28/the-problem-with-earthly-blind-faith/ https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/28/the-problem-with-earthl... https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/25/1200-jobs-lost-as-wrightbus-enters-administration/ https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/09/25/1200-jobs-lost-as-wrigh...

pjc50 7y ago

Brexit sits in limbo. Either it won't happen, which gets more likely as time goes by, or the government will do something extraordinarily stupid and put a border back between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Arguably one of the big impacts of Brexit is that the government no longer has or is capable of any other policy. Perhaps they could have attempted a rescue. Or a clawback of the donations (see Sir Philip Green and the BHS pension fund). But the Westminster government is crippled by its own incompetence, and Stormont has been absent for three years. It reconvened very briefly on Monday in an attempt to stop the abortion law in Northern Ireland being brought up to date (because that's obviously the most important thing facing NI, right?), but that fizzled out.