Waterford Crystal now in receivership. Who has the stuff?

Run_to_da_hills

It would be sad to see this firm go under. The Directors Tony O’Reilly, his wife, Redmond O’Donoghue and Patrick Molloy have now all resigned from the firm.

Who has the stuff?

I won a hand crafted trophy from a waterford based bike club in the 90ies.

I wonder will there be a mad rush for their sales now that there is fear of them going under?

http://www.examiner.ie/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=81295-qqqx=1.asp

Rb

In fairness, Waterford Crystal have been in a lot of trouble for a long time now.

I did a college project on the company in 2004 and the **** was really hitting the fan hard then and it has never really picked up since.

giggsy664

My dad has a few pieces from his (Tres petite) golf career.

shenanigans1982

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Who has the stuff?

The NWO?

Sharpshooter

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Who has the stuff?

Shouldn't it be crystal clear?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

The folks bought two chandeliers recently.

I'd say there may well be a rush to pick up the stuff, it's a bit of an institution.

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Run_to_da_hills

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

The NWO?

Im sure the White house has its share of the stuff.

shenanigans1982

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Im sure the White house has its share of the stuff.

...true Americans are the only ones I can ever recall buying it, any Irish person I know that has some seems to have won it in some sort of competition.

4zn76tysfajdxp

Whoops.

Crackerspray

The folks have tons of the stuff back home, only gets out of the press about 3 times a year! Wouldn't mind having a piece or two, may get very collectable down the line.

juvenal

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

...true Americans are the only ones I can ever recall buying it, any Irish person I know that has some seems to have won it in some sort of competition.

That's very true, especially the high end ultra expensive stuff.

The increasing value of the Euro v US dollar caused serious problems, as having the US as it's main target market, the company's success is dependent on the currency markets. With the majority of their sales in US dollars and the majority of their outgoings probably in Euro, it was always going to be a struggle.

It will be kind of sad if the company goes to the floor, but in times like these, the luxury goods market will always be one of the hardest hit. It was always nice to have a genuinely iconic world famous brand coming from Ireland (especially not alcohol related!:D) - it will be interesting to see where it goes from here.

Ruu_Old

My folks must have at least one cabinet full of vases and hunting trophies and other things.

eVeNtInE

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lostexpectation

who needs fancy glass, or china, ??? nobody i dont' care about the loss of the company but i am concerned about the pensions
8,000 Waterford pensions under threat from collapse
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2009/0106/1230936700599.html

juvenal

Interesting analysis of the situation in today's Irish Times:

The Irish Times wrote:

ANALYSIS: Downturns in its target markets and adverse exchange rates only exacerbated the flaws in a company that was slow to respond to changing tastes and consumer trends, writes Dominic Coyle

WATERFORD WEDGWOOD appears finally to have run out of last chances. The luxury goods group has been in corporate intensive care for so long that the announcement yesterday of the appointment of a receiver came almost as a confirmation of the inevitable.

Receivership does, of course, grant the group one last breathing space. But, given that chairman Sir Anthony O'Reilly and the board headed by US chief executive David Sculley have been unable to attract an investor on firesale terms that would have significantly reduced the holdings of existing investors, the prospects of the business continuing as a unified going concern seem slim.

Over the past five years, the company has undergone six separate fundraising exercises involving a total of €550 million - aimed largely at restructuring the company and trimming its workforce. Sir Anthony, who first joined the company in 1985 - just ahead of its merger with Wedgwood - and his brother-in-law Peter Goulandris have between them poured about €400 million into the group in recent years.

Unite, the trade union which represents most of the workers at Waterford's Kilbarry plant, argued yesterday that the company was "too important to the workers and their families, to the City of Waterford and to the nation as a whole, to let it disappear".

But the company has already petitioned the Government for support. Last April, it asked the State to underwrite loans of €39 million to help fund its latest restructuring plan. By that time, Waterford was restricted from raising further loans from its banks because of the extent of covenants on its existing debt, which exceeded €470 million.

That plea was turned down.

Since then, Waterford Wedgwood has recorded further losses and, early last month, it failed to make an €8.2 million interest payment to investors holding loan notes in the company. That triggered the latest scene in the long-running saga. Ultimately, the forbearance of the luxury group's lenders was exhasuted, leaving it no choce but to call in receivers Deloitte.

To an extent, Waterford Wedgwood has been unlucky. Dependent disproportionately on the United States and, especially for ceramics, Japanese markets, it has struggled with economic downturns in both. That has been exacerbated by long-term adverse exchange rates that have undermined its efforts to return to sustained profitability in recent years.

However, the company has also been author of its own misfortunes. This is particuarly so in the case of its approach to the US market for Waterford crystal. Long after luxury giftware customer taste had migrated to more modern, informal glassware, such as Riedel, Waterford was persevering with its emphasis on more traditional heavy-cut crystal.

Its investment in Rosenthal and deals with designers such as John Rocha for more modern glassware have amounted to "too little, too late".

It also persevered stubbornly with a policy of distributing its range through A-list department stores, ignoring trends that showed customers increasingly buying their homewares at other outlets such as the Bed, Bath Beyond and Williams-Sonoma chains.

Then there was the ill-fated decision to pursue Royal Doulton. While not, in itself, the catalyst for the company's current financial straits, the necessity of pursuing such a deal was openly questioned at the time. The acquisition required the company to tap outside funding at a time when those funds might have been better used to restructure what was an increasingly uncompetitive business.

In more recent years, the company's efforts to chart new strategic directions have been undermined by the scale of the debt burden required to fund necessary changes in work practices - as well as the Royal Doulton deal. All-Clad, the US cookware group acquired in 1999 to bolster the ceramics division and drive future profitability, performed well but had to be sold in 2004 as part of an exercise to pay down debt.

Peter Cameron, who joined Waterford Wedgwood as part of the All-Clad team and took over as chief executive towards the end of 2005, persuaded the company of the need to come to terms with the lifestyle changes of its target customer base and to become more focused in its approach to distribution channels and customer service. However, the company continued to struggle to make headway in sales and profitability.

Last April, David Sculley - a former senior executive at HJ Heinz during O'Reilly's tenure there - was parachuted in with an agenda to aggressively attack costs and an intention to target anew the Asian market. The limited evidence in the interim indicates that his assault on costs was delivering results.

Unfortunately for the iconic luxury goods maker, its workers and its suppliers, the weight of debt pressing down on the company meant time had simply run out for the company in its current form.

The rapid worsening of the economic climate and the collapse of banking confidence frustrated the company's desperate recent attempts to find a buyer.

Waterford Wedgwood continues to house a number of iconic brands but whether there will be any market appetite for elements of the company remains to be seen. The debt burden, including a significant hole in its group pension funds, will only make that challenge more difficult.

LightningBolt

Waterford Crystal yet they manufactured some products in Poland:rolleyes:

lostexpectation

riedel nice and fine
http://images.google.ie/images?q=Riedel&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enIE274IE274&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

Fratton Fred

it's the same with Wedgewood.

Yeah it's a nice bit of tradition, but both are companies that have lived on their brand for years and have been making a loss for a long time. This recession is just killing off a lot of dead wood, a bit like Woolies.

I believe Waterford-Wedgewood employ 1500 people in Indonesia as well btw.

luckat

The trouble is that they ran into trouble originally, ohh, 20 or 25 years ago must be, and they decided that they had to cut costs.

They moved the glass-cutting to cheaper workplaces.

Quickly, the product, which had formerly had a reputation as top quality crystal with beautiful designs, became known as slightly declassé, and upper-class Americans - the most picky of customers - started buying other types of crystal.

Waterford reacted by trying to sell more, which of course increased the image of second-class goods.

I don't know if it was the same with Wedgwood, but wouldn't be surprised - back in the day, Wedgwood was very expensive, and very much desired as top-quality china. Now it's, well, ordinary.

BroomBurner

Does anyone know what shops are selling the last of the stock? Prob going good'n'cheap...



(yeah, I know of the stingey thread...)

BaconZombie

The company was originally set-up by a Czech national and has out-source all the manufacturing years ago. The only thing left in Ireland is the tourist trap.

Cookie_Monster

Won't they just move to Poland/India etc and route it via Waterford or something to ligitimise it as Irish?

Seems to be the current trend

Run_to_da_hills

BroomBurner wrote: »

Does anyone know what shops are selling the last of the stock? Prob going good'n'cheap...



(yeah, I know of the stingey thread...)

I would sayy quite the oposite, shops would be increasing the prices knowing that there may be a run on the product.

BroomBurner

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I would sayy quite the oposite, shops would be increasing the prices knowing that there may be a run on the product.

Nah, my sister got a load of [some other expensive brand glassware] from Homestores at 70 and 80% discounts. The brand (Waterford) might make it popular, but noone is a position to spend big money on glassware, otherwise the company wouldn't be going so far downhill.

gotcha09

Its such a shame that such a popular company is going under. i have lots of family memebers who used to and still do work there. i am currently working in the waterford crystal leisure centre and nobody is telling us anything about our future, if we are going to be affected or not. i was wondering if anybody knows who owns the leisure centre. is it still the employees or has it moved on to somebody else???:(

Run_to_da_hills

gotcha09 wrote: »

Its such a shame that such a popular company is going under. i have lots of family members who used to and still do work there. i am currently working in the Weatherford crystal leisure centerer and nobody is telling us anything about our future, if we are going to be affected or not. i was wondering if anybody knows who owns the leisure centerer. is it still the employees or has it moved on to somebody else???:(

Unfortunately Waterford glass would be similar to Dell in that if it goes it will take a lot more down than just the 800 or so employed at the factory. Other spin offs will be effected including hotel and catering, tour guides, coach trips for those visiting the factory, sales, retail spending in Waterford from tourists, packaging, advertisement agencies, contracted courier and freight.

gotcha09

nobody has called us together to tell us what is happening. i think at this stage we're just waiting to be called into a meeting to tell us how we are going to be affected. but when we ask we're just told not to worry that we're not going to be affected, then it just gets brushed off to the side without anyone giving us a straight answer

Snowie

shame another companys going bust.....
couldnt stand the stuff really .....

Turd Ferguson

I'm going to buy it and re-name it Waterford Crystal Meth.

I'll make trillions!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cuddlesworth

gotcha09 wrote: »

nobody has called us together to tell us what is happening. i think at this stage we're just waiting to be called into a meeting to tell us how we are going to be affected. but when we ask we're just told not to worry that we're not going to be affected, then it just gets brushed off to the side without anyone giving us a straight answer

Its going to be a while before you will find out. At this stage now the company as a whole will be weighed up, values will be placed on assets, potential buyers or investors for various parts of the company will be sought and it will be business as usual.

ToxicPaddy

Ahh it will be a shame to see it go and a big shock to the local economy in Waterford, being from Waterford and my father doing some work regularly in the factory for years, I was always in around the place when younger..

Like most Waterford people, we have mountains of crystal all over the place, in North America its still seen as a really expensive item and still have major presence in the high end gift stores on the likes of 5th Avenue etc..

Still though, its a dinosaur that was bound to die off sometime, esp with its main market being the US and the demise of the US economy, it had to happen.

towel401

i bought some only a week or 2 ago. was going to start collecting it
hopefully some chinese company will buy them and keep it going

Nolanger

BroomBurner wrote: »

Does anyone know what shops are selling the last of the stock? Prob going good'n'cheap...

Dunnes were selling the stuff a few months back - so much for exclusive quality reputation.

Run_to_da_hills

Nolanger wrote: »

Dunnes were selling the stuff a few months back - so much for exclusive quality reputation.

I'm surprised it didn't get into the Lidl catalog

Biggins

Just watched an American ABC news report. They kept on stating that Waterford Crystal was British.
Is it? I though it was Irish and always was.
Did the brits buy it out at some stage? Or have the Americans got their knickers in a twist!

Professey Chin

Both my parents worked there till a few years ago. The stuffs everywhere in our house. Im tryin to juggle some right now.

lostexpectation

wedgewood is british