More than a hundred staff have lost their jobs with the closure of the Brighton i360 less than a week before Christmas.
A London company, Interpath Advisory, said that the Brighton i360 had closed after the appointment of joint administrators.
Interpath said: “Steve Absolom and Will Wright from Interpath were appointed joint administrators to Brighton i-360 Limited earlier today (Friday 20 December).
“The company owns and operates the i360 observation tower in Brighton, a 162m high observation tower designed by renowned architects David Marks and Julia Barfield.
“The company had significant legacy liabilities dating back to the time of its construction.
“Unfortunately, trading revenues over recent years were insufficient to fund both the attraction’s operating costs and the debt repayments as they fell due.
“Over recent weeks, the directors sought to seek a buyer who would be able to take the business forward with new investment.
“Unfortunately, however, a transaction was unable to be agreed, and as such, the directors resolved to place the Company into administration.
“Regrettably, with no funding available for the attraction to continue to operate, and following the appointment of the joint administrators, the Brighton i360 has closed with immediate effect.
“Sadly, all 109 employees have been made redundant.
“Customers are advised that all forward bookings will not be able to go ahead.”
Interpath managing director Steve Absolom, one of the joint administrators, said: “First and foremost, our thoughts are with the loyal and dedicated staff at i360 who will be devasted by this news, particularly given the time of year.
“Our immediate priority will be to work with all of them to provide them with the support they need to make claims to the Redundancy Payments Service.”
Mr Absolom added: “Despite engagement with key stakeholders and several interested parties over recent weeks, the directors have been unable to secure a rescue deal and avoid administration.
“Our focus will now be on working with the freehold landowners to establish a short window of opportunity for someone to step forward and resurrect the business on the site in the new year.”
Interested parties should contact Charlie Carter at Interpath at charlie.carter@interpath.com.
100 staff … That’s going to be a wage bill of over £3million. No wonder they didn’t make a profit. How many people does it take to book people in, 1 or 2, 2 to run it, a manager for bookings. 100 people wow
According to the filed accounts ending June 2023 155 staff and 6 directors. Staff employment costs £2,436,415. Directors got no pay. Looks like they were shedding staff already – or maybe that number is a seasonal high water mark.
Turnover was £5.8 Million.
They re-valued the fixed assets and wrote off £28 Million as impaired assets, making the bottom line look very poor, but probably honest.
They paid over 3 Million in loan interest alone.
It owes £67 Million to it’s creditors
From these numbers above you can see that it was never, ever going to get its head above water.
It should have gone bust years ago.
This would be a great spot for social housing. Come on Labour do what working class voted for!
Sympathy for the staff.
Another idiotic waste of taxpayers money. Any fool could see that this was a white elephant. If Brighton really want to attract people to the town why not drastically reduce the sky high rip off parking charges and anti car policy for a start. As a motorist and a cyclist – the cycle lane on Madeira Drive was also totally unnecessary.
Would be good for something positive to come out of this.
The poor staff. Can Brighton and Hove news set up a crowdfunder to help pay their wages? I’d donate