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TG Green, the name behind Cornishware, is reportedly attracting plenty of interest from potential buyers since going into administration earlier this month.
The other two components of The Tabletop Group, Mason Cash and The Tabletop Company, have been acquired by The Rayware Group.
TTG chief executive David French told housewareslive.net that he had put TG Green into administration two days after completing the deal with Rayware on July 4.
“TG Green is currently trading quite successfully in administration,” he said. “It was advertised for sale last Tuesday and there are lots of interested parties. We’re currently in negotiations with several and we believe a transaction will be completed very quickly.”
He said would-be buyers included “several people you’d expect to be interested. But because of the uniqueness of Cornishware there are also a number of entities not based in the UK that are expressing an interest. TG Green is a very long-established name, so what goes hand in glove with it is an enormous historic archive which is fascinating to many people.”
A contingent of eight of the 43 TG Green staff remains with the company, but French said the rest have all found new jobs. He added that none of the Mason Cash or TTC employees is without work either.
“Quite a few have secured jobs with Rayware Group,” he said. “With regard to the production staff they’ve found very good positions with other UK-based manufacturers.”
French said that he had felt it was the right time to dispose of The Tabletop Group: “Fundamentally, we’d been a private business. I funded the whole entity myself and as long as I was happy to do that there wasn’t an issue. We acquired Mason Cash and TG Green three years ago, we put a lot of investment into it. But we got to a point where we were at a crossroads and I had to decide whether I should sell the business now or commit more of my time and energies – and it would probably have been something like five years to take it on to the next level.”
French said he was “considering various options” with regard to his own future. “I’m devoting more of my time to the development of the strategy of the trade association [British Home Enhancement Trade Association]. But I do have other business interests not in the housewares industry.”
