This article was written by Steven Morris, for The Guardian on Friday 20th January 2012 14.41 UTC
The staff at the Peacocks store in Pontypridd were attempting to be as cheerful as always, laughing and joking as they clambered up a ladder to tape a new sale sign (“biggest ever – 20-70% of everything”) to the window.
Inevitably though, customers detected a sadness and concern hidden by the smiles. “I feel so sorry for them,” said one shopper, Catherine Richards. “Look how young they are. I feel very disappointed for them and for the whole of Wales really. Peacocks is a good Welsh brand and it would be such a shame if we lost it.”
The collapse of Peacocks into administration is being felt on high streets across the UK. There has been an outpouring of support for the company from shoppers who love its affordable lines – many were wearing Peacocks outfits on Friday to demonstrate their solidarity – and from workers who considered their colleagues a second family.
But the company’s problems are having a particular impact on Wales, where Peacocks has its headquarters, a major distribution plant and a string of stores.
Peacocks was founded in 1884 by Albert Peacock in Cheshire as a typical Victorian penny bazaar, selling anything and everything. As the business prospered in the first half of the 20th century, Albert’s son Harold moved it to Cardiff in 1940.
The company became important to the city not just because of the jobs it provided but also for the message it sent out to the business world: that the Welsh capital was a great place to site a headquarters. Crucially, it meant that bright young Welsh businesspeople did not have to pack their bags and head to England to make a living.
“A great thing about working for Peacocks is that it is a Welsh company,” said one IT worker based at the headquarters close to the city centre. “I’m a proud Welshman and proud to work for a Welsh company. It would be a pity if the link with Wales was lost.”
The administrators have announced 249 redundancies at the head office, leaving 266 to keep the business going while a buyer is sought. Another 9,300 staff are still employed and its 563 stores and 48 concessions continue to operate. “But you can imagine the concern in there at the moment,” said the IT worker, who asked not to be named. “We hope a buyer will be found but you’d think if that does happen the HQ here could shut and it would no longer be a Welsh company.”
Kevin Brennan, the MP for Cardiff West, said Peacocks was a rare Welsh business success story. “We don’t have too many large companies headquartered in Cardiff and private sector jobs are hard to come by with the decline of heavy industry. Peacocks is an iconic company for Cardiff and south Wales.”
Brennan said people were angry that the collapse appeared to have been triggered by the withdrawal of support by the Royal Bank of Scotland. “People don’t understand why they were expected to bail out RBS but at Peacocks’s time of need RBS triggered a series of events that led to people being made redundant.”
Jonathan Deacon, a business expert at University of Wales said the collapse of Peacocks could be hugely damaging to the country. “Clearly it brings in millions to the economy but it has also played a very important social role, keeping young, ambitious Welsh people in work locally.” His concern is that a brain drain could follow if the headquarters and other parts of the business were shut down. “This could be a tremendous loss for Wales,” he said.
Naturally Peacocks has become a hot political story. Critics of the Welsh government claim it has not done enough to help. The first minister, Carwyn Jones, said the government could not stump up the cash to bail it out. “If we did we’d have to do it for every company that is in this situation,” he said.
Jones said the UK government had not explained the important question of why RBS had acted as it did. “There are a number of financial institutions that have been rescued with public money and yet they are being allowed to operate as if that never happened,” he said.
Nine miles north of the head office, on the A470 between Cardiff and Pontypridd, is the village of Nantgarw. Once, the canals and coal mines provided many hundreds of jobs in this area. Now the Peacocks distribution centre is a major employer, providing jobs to 400 people.
A sombre homemade sign was pinned to the grey metal fence: “10,000 jobs at risk.” The staff here are on tenterhooks. “The atmosphere is like a morgue,” said one lorry driver. “We feel very sorry for the head office staff who’ve already gone. We’re wondering if we’ll be next.”
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