Stories questioning the future of Kuppersbusch have circulated since incorrect claims appeared in sections of the German press.
The reports in question stated that Kuppersbusch was going out of business, but it is understood that the publications involved have agreed to publish retractions and apologies. At a time when all international markets are jittery, the slightest hint that a company is in trouble can cause real problems, even if the problem itself is not real. This is why Kuppersbusch and its parent company Teka has moved quickly to get the record corrected.
International Director, Anne Vanden Berghe commented that, “Like many of our European competitors we have been working hard to restructure some areas of our business, both here in the UK and in other parts of world ““ including Germany. ”
“Sadly and inevitably this has led to the loss of some jobs in countries like Germany and the UK. Unfortunately some of the stories that have appeared in the press have taken these job losses completely out of context and made totally unfounded and inaccurate statements. The publications in question have agreed to publish retractions and apologies.”
Ms Vanden Berghe added that: “These are challenging times for the whole kitchen sector and we have been working hard to secure the long-term future of our people, our products, our brands and our business. We believe plans are now in place to achieve this.”
However rumours and, it has to be stressed that these are rumours, have been reaching us continuously over the past couple of months that Teka UK itself was in trouble. The reason for this is that, according to sources, Teka UK has lost, quite literally, millions this year through bad debts with reports citing that up to close on 40% of Teka’s UK turnover has been written off.
Whilst there is little real substance to these reports, the rumours have come from several different sources and service agents have been experiencing slower payments which would tend to point towards some truth in them.
In addition to this Teka have been shedding staff with a new MD due to start on January 5th 2009 and the UK service manager as well as some of his staff all leaving.
It may all be rumour and speculation, it may not be but Teka’s main market is the KBB arena which, as reported earlier seems to be in meltdown at the moment with the most difficult trading conditions for decades. Would we be surprised if Teka or Kuppersbusch was in trouble? Quite simply, no, we wouldn’t be surprised at all.