Wrightbus, the Northern Irish maker of the revived Routemaster London bus, is close to being rescued after last-ditch talks with a suitor for the business produced a breakthrough.
The Ballymena-based business went into administration last month with the loss of 1,200 jobs but it was announced on Friday that a deal had been reached “in principle” between the firm’s founding family and the industrialist Jo Bamford.
The Wright family owns the Wrightbus factory and nearby farmland and a failure to agree a deal for those assets had been the main sticking point over a rescue. Talks are ongoing between Bamford and the firm’s administrators, Deloitte. Wrightbus had been due to go into liquidation on Friday.
“We are delighted to announce that this morning I have agreed terms on a deal in principle with the Wright family for the Wrightbus factory and land,” said Bamford, who is making the acquisition through his Ryse Hydrogen company. “We are still to conclude a deal with the administrators but are pleased to report this important step in the right direction. I would like to thank Ian Paisley MP for his hard work and diligence in helping to mediate what has at times been a tricky negotiation.”
Paisley, the Democratic Unionist party MP for North Antrim, said Bamford was “concluding the final arrangements with the administrator”. Bamford is the son of Lord Bamford, the chairman of British digger manufacturer JCB.
Farmland close to the factory premises had been the main block in talks between Jeff Wright, the son of the company’s founder, Sir William Wright, and Bamford.
Wright said as part of the deal he had agreed to gift the farmland to Mid and East Antrim council to acknowledge the contribution of Ballymena people to the Wrightbus brand over 70 years.
“This legacy gift is a tribute not only to my father, his father before him, and the Wright family members but most importantly it is a tribute to the generations of workers who helped build a proud manufacturing tradition in Ballymena,” he said.
He said the council had confirmed the lands would be used for a proposed innovation centre for manufacturing startups that could create almost 2,500 jobs.
“I believe the presence of this centre on the Wrightbus legacy land will send a clear message to Northern Ireland and beyond that Ballymena has a strong future in advanced manufacturing,” he added.
There were scenes of celebration outside the factory on Friday as workers toasted the news. George Brash, a regional officer for the Unite trade union, said the workforce was jubilant. “This result means everything to the workforce, their families, and the wider Ballymena community,” he said.
Wrightbus had been struggling with its finances and made two rounds of redundancies last year, with 95 jobs going in February and June. It had recent sales successes, including a Transport for London order in May for 20 hydrogen-powered buses, which each cost about £500,000 and only emit water as exhaust.
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, completed an order of 1,000 of the New Routemasters in 2016, which had been launched with a fanfare when Boris Johnson was running the capital in 2012.
