Winding down discarded tweed firms 22/7/10
The owner of a Stornoway Harris Tweed company says its liquidation is nothing to worry about.
Brian Haggas says he is winding up a raft of old Lewis textile firms -
Mr Haggas provoked anger in the islands over the last four years when he seized an effective monopoly of the industry and then slashed production.
He purchased the large Kenneth Mackenzie mill which lay dormant all last year affecting around 200 weavers and mill employees.
Once a major worldwide exporter of the famous cloth, only a tiny handful of people currently work in the plant.
Four years ago Mr Haggas took over The Harris Tweed Company which ran the rival Parkend mill and promptly closed it down.
Joint liquidators from Leeds have now been appointed to wind up the firm.
Though simply dissolving the company would be a far simpler method, Mr Haggas says his accountants advised it was financial advantageous, in this particular case, to go down the more complex liquidation route.
He said: "I inherited about ten different companies and am now trying to get it down to just Kenneth Mackenzie's. They are not trading and there is no significance in closing them down."
Amongst the textile companies held under the Mackenzie's umbrella were legacies from
once thronging Hebridean mills in the early to mid 1900s which consolidated over
the decades. Some were still valuable as they retained loyal age-
But their business was rejected by Mr Haggas whose contentious strategy was to cull
the workforce and manufacturing to dedicate the Stornoway mill's entire, albeit heavily
reduced, production to an in-
Now only five patterns are being made for just two styles of men's jacket -