Rennicks sale to see loss of 13 jobs
Rennicks has announced it has entered into an agreement to sell its Irish road- traffic sign business, Rennicks Sign Manufacturing, to UK rival Morelock Signs for an undisclosed sum. The company cited a drop in demand.
The move will result in the production activities of both companies being consolidated into Morelock’s business in the UK’s west midlands factory. This will mean around 13 employees will be made redundant at Rennicks manufacturing site in Kilbride, Dublin.
At the same time, 18 employees will transfer to the new business and Morelock will continue to trade under the Rennicks brand in Ireland.
The broader Rennicks Group will continue to trade via its other entities. From its Dublin base, the group also services the high-volume UK car industry with vehicle registration plate components. Rennicks (UK) Ltd, meanwhile, was set up in the mid-1980s to serve the UK’s roads infrastructure market, and has a sales and distribution centre in Cheshire.
That business and a similar one in South Africa have driven group growth in recent years and they will continue to be developed.
Around 85% of the group’s revenues are now achieved overseas.
Regarding the sale of the domestic Irish road sign business, Rennicks group managing director Michael Flanagan said: “For the past five years, we have seen a decline in the demand for domestic traffic sign production as the pace of developing new motorways has dramatically reduced.
“By the end of 2012, Transport Infrastructure Ireland completed the very extensive expansion of Ireland’s motorway network over the previous decade.
“Major improvements were also made to the key inter-urban, national primary and national secondary routes and the company benefited from that decade of very significant government investment in the roads infrastructure network.”
