John Tams Group

Newspaper articles regarding the receivership in February 2000
NOTE: There was a management buyout in April 2000 and the business continued until 2006

[John Tams & Son]    [Tams Group Ltd]

 

Article in The Sentinel Newspaper 1st February 2000

Longton-based pottery firm John Tams Group future in doubt
By Business Editor Michael Litchfield

The shares of Longton-based pottery firm John Tams Group were suspended on the Stock Exchange today fuelling fears for its future.
 City analysts are speculating that the company, which employs 750, is about to reveal bad trading results in its last half-year figures to September.
The group is known to have an overdraft of more than £4 million with Lloyds Bank which stated that £2.5 million was repayable ‘‘on demand''.
This agreement was up for renewal in December and an agreement with the same bank for a further £2.5 million overdraft is up for re-negotiation in April.
Geoffrey Snow, of Hanley-based stockbroker P H Pope and Son, said: ‘‘It would appear that the news isn't good. It's four months since the end of the half-year period and the company still says it will be another few weeks before releasing figures. The bank already has a debenture on all its assets.
‘‘It could be the company's seeking more share capital in order to repay the overdraft, but it's difficult to know without more information.''
Angela Tams, who became chairman of the company following the death of her husband Gerald last October, told The Sentinel today that a further announcement would be made when the interim results were announced in a few weeks.
She said: ‘‘This notice from the directors comes at an advanced stage of restructuring the finances of the company.
‘‘I cannot say any more at this stage because of the rules of the City.''
Mrs Tams said that her ‘‘hands are tied'' by the rules of trading, but added: ‘‘I would love to tell you everything, unfortunately it's more than I dare do.''
Despite seeing the company plunge to a £2.7 million loss last year, the late Mr Tams had been optimistic about the future, not only of his group but the Potteries' ceramics industry in particular.
Shortly before his death, he lambasted the ‘‘whingers'' in his industry who blamed the strong pound, the Asian ‘‘invaders'' and the sluggish domestic market for all the Potteries' woes.
Mr Tams died from stomach cancer after a brave six-year battle against the disease.His widow said today: ‘‘I miss my husband more than I could ever begin to say.
‘‘I love this city the way he did. It's tough-going now, but I am surrounded by wonderful people and we are all rooted in one cause. We are in this together and we shall come through it together.''
The Tams Group has always been family-run, despite floating in 1998. The Tams family retained a 70 per cent shareholding.
It was Gerald Tams who built up the group into an international company, lead-ing a buyout in 1984, then making it public four years later. At the time of his death Mr Tams held 15.5 million shares in the company. His wife had 3.7 million.

 

 

Article in The Sentinel Newspaper 16th February 2000  

Tams Pottery goes under
By Business Editor Michael Litchfield

The 730-strong workforce at an historic pottery was today bracing itself for job losses after being told the firm had gone into receivership.
Staff at John Tams Group's five sites in Stoke-on-Trent were told of the company's fate at a series of meetings this morning.
Administrative receiver Myles Halley, of accountants and business advisers KPMG, later confirmed to The Sentinel it was hoped the firm could be sold as a going concern.
But he conceded ‘‘major'' compulsory redundancies were inevitable and the figures would be released as early as next week.
He said: ‘‘It is likely that we are going to have to make rationalisation and redundancies to get to grips with the business.''
Mr Halley pledged that workers who had not received their weekly wages today would be paid tomorrow.
The 125-year-old firm is one of the last great family-run pottery firms in the world and considered a jewel in the Potteries' crown.
This collapse of another pottery institution is a further hammer blow to the region just as political and industrial leaders are seeking a rescue package with Trade and Industry Secretary of State Stephen Byers.
Mr Halley said: ‘‘Although the board of directors had been looking into finding a buyer for the business for six months they simply ran out of time.''
Geoffrey Snow, of Hanley-based stockbroker P H Pope and Son, said: ‘‘I'm not surprised by the news. I had heard that staff hadn't received their wages. It would seem that the bank has asked for its money back and now it's a real crisis.''
The mood among workers at the gates of the Sutherland Works in Longton was grim this morning.
The City was speculating before today's announcement that the company was about to reveal bad trading results in its last half-year figures to September.
John Tams is known to have an overdraft of more than £4 million with Lloyds Bank, which stated that £2.5 million was repayable ‘‘on demand''.
The agreement was up for renewal in December. A further agreement with the same bank for another £2.5 million is due for re-negotiation in April.


 Dennis Heywood, the group's chief executive, said today: ‘‘As a manufacturer heavily reliant on the retail market, we have been hit hard by a number of factors, such as the dip in the UK retail market, the strong pound, cheap imports and the collapse of the Far Eastern markets.
‘‘We have always been heavily reliant on exports, having exported as much as 50 per cent of our production in the past, so the strong pound hit us particularly hard.''
Angela Tams has been chairman of the group since the death of her husband Gerald last October.
At the time of the suspension of shares, she told The Sentinel: ‘‘This notice from the directors comes at an advanced stage of restructuring the finances of the company.''
Mrs Tams has a 70 per cent share in the company. These shares, according to Mr Snow, will now be worthless, meaning that she has lost everything so soon after losing her husband, revealing yet another face to the human cost.
Lloyds Bank will now be looking for someone to save the company, which could be either a competitor or even in the form of a management buyout.
City council deputy leader Councillor Cliff Hathaway said: ‘‘We are haemorrhaging jobs in the pottery industry.
‘‘The Potteries as a whole are going through a tough time and we still face more job losses in the future.
‘‘As a council we are trying to do all we can to support the industry in the area but these tough times may not be over.''
The company was started 125 years ago. In 1988, it was floated on the Unlisted Securities Market before noving to the full Stock Exchange in 1995.
Kevin Farrell chief executive of the British Ceramic Confederation, said: ‘‘This is very hard and sad to take in. I wasn't aware of any particular circumstances that made the situation this critical.
‘‘Until we know more about the background to this tragedy, it's impossible to comment on the prospects for the future. So much will depend on the information available.''

 

Article in The Sentinel Newspaper 22nd February 2000  

Closure ‘like death in the family’
John Tams’ boss Angela tells of the heartbreak of final hours

Last week one of Stoke-on-Trent's most historic pottery companies went under. The Longton-based John Tams Group slipped into receivership with overdrafts totalling £5 million.
For chairman Angela Tams the family firm's downfall was a second tragedy. Her husband Gerald, managing director and driving force behind the company, died of cancer in October.
Mrs Tams speaks of her double heartbreak to Sentinel Business Editor MICHAEL LITCHFIELD.

The John Tams pottery group went into receivership last week because the bank ‘‘pulled the plug''.
This had been denied by administrative receiver Myles Halley, from accountants and business advisers KPMG.
But company chairman Mrs Angela Tams says: ‘‘It was the bank's right to call for the repayment of its money whenever it wanted.
‘‘I made a pact with myself not to apportion blame in this tragedy. To do so would only be counter-productive. The bank did what it considered it had to do. To say I'm sad is a great understatement. I'm devastated.
‘‘But there are no recriminations. It's not for me to answer on behalf of the bank. It has its own reasons and rights, which have been exercised.''
Mrs Tams denied there had been a boardroom split and in-fighting over the decision to call in the receiver.
She revealed: ‘‘We burned the midnight oil. We had meetings around the clock with advisers and, in the end, were unanimous that it would be morally and legally wrong not to act in the way we did.''
Last Friday she plucked up courage to visit all five factories, shaking hands with every employee.
She said: ‘‘I thought it was my duty to give them support in these traumatic and uncertain times, but they were the ones hugging me and reassuring me that everything would be all right. I was humbled. I was told: ‘We are one, big family. We must stick together, come what may.' These were people who could be looking for another job in a few days.
‘‘There were many tears, but smiles too. They lifted me more than I did them.''
Mrs Tams reassured all employees that, although there would inevitably be ‘‘heavy job losses'', all redundancy payments would be paid in full.
She said: ‘‘That is enshrined in Employment Protection Law. It is the only gilt-edged guarantee in this whole sorry affair.''
Factory closures and redundancies within the group could be announced later this week.
With tragic irony, her own 70 per cent stake in the company is now, at a stroke, virtually worthless. Mrs Tams was still mourning the death of her husband when the loss of the company left her numb. She said: ‘‘Gerald and I have loved the business as if it was our own flesh and blood. Last Thursday, when the receivers took over, it was just like another death in the family. Something in me died all over again.
‘‘I have missed Gerald so dreadfully. It would be wrong to suggest I was getting over his death because I wasn't, but I was getting on with my life, which was the family business.
‘‘It was that we'd both shared and nurtured for so long. So in a strange way, my life with Gerald lived on through the company.
‘‘Now sudden death has struck again to take away another love of my life. And although to observers it may have seemed as if the company was on its death-bed, it never looked that way to insiders, to me and Gerald.
‘‘Even when shares were suspended on the Stock Market at the beginning of the month, I was confident a solution would be found and we would pull through.''
Mrs Tams sat at the head of the table used for board meetings, the empty chairs representing the ghosts of prosperous yesterdays when the company was valued at £33 million and the future seemed certain.
The Tams group is one of the last great family-run pottery firms in Stoke-on-Trent and this year should have been celebrating its 125th year.
Mrs Tams' husband had been with the company for 40 years - 20 years as production director before rising to chairman and managing director in 1984.
Having built up the company from two factories to five, he led a management buyout in 1984 and took the company public four years later.
The company was growing fast and by the time it died last week, it employed 730 workers.
Mrs Tams said: ‘‘I am overcome by a sense of personal failure. I know it's not true. I know I've done everything possible, but I still feel I've failed - failed the workers, who are the only people that matter. They are the victims.''
She added: ‘‘I hope Gerald would be proud of me. I've tried desperately hard to do things morally right, because that always meant so much to Gerald.
‘‘He would have been anxious to ensure every single worker realised how much we cared - for every one of them and the name of the company."
She said there was no defining moment which put the company into a nosedive. ‘‘Despite Gerald's vision and strength of leadership, in all honesty I don't think the outcome would have been any different if he was still alive.''
Mrs Tams' pride for the company is matched only by her admiration for her two grown-up children, Catherine and Jeremy, who have ‘‘gone their own ways, without relying on the family business''.
Catherine is in banking and Jeremy is a sales manager with another Stoke-on-Trent pottery firm.
Mrs Tams suddenly brightened. ‘‘There is a ray of sunshine,'' she said. ‘‘In June I shall be a grandmother. That will keep me occupied, if nothing else does. So, I still have something to look forward to.''