It's as simple as 3+6=9. March + 6 months = September.
March was when Phil & Teds announced it was buying Mountain Buggy, its New Zealand competitor, out of bankruptcy.
Six months was the timeline floated then for making a decision whether it made sense to keep MB's New Zealand factory open, or move production to China, where all P&T's rigs are made.
September 30th is when the Mountain Buggy factory will close, and November is when MB production picks back up in China.
What's surprising is not that the move and associated job cuts are happening, but that they were, in fact, a done deal in March. Back then, P&T owner Campbell Gower tried to make it seem otherwise when he said, "phil&teds will run the Mountain Buggy factory in New Zealand before making any decisions."
But it sounds like P&T will never even take ownership of the factory. In reporting the closing, the Timaru Herald says that Mountain Buggy bankruptcy receiver PWC "had responsibility for the staff and factory until September 30 in a transition agreement with phil&teds."
The PWC spokesman's take on the workers: ""They've had a job for six months longer than they might have." And as Gower put it, "It sucks. But it's reality."
Capitalism may be dead in America, but it's alive and kicking workers to the curb down under! The new, super-high-quality, Chinese Mountain Buggies will probably start turning up in stores in early 2010.
Jobs go as Mountain Buggy moves to China [stuff.co.nz via dainty baby]
Previously: doubling down: phil & teds buys mountain buggy out of bankruptcy
Yet another win for that winning combo of 60-year-old white investment banker guys and Communist China. I look forward to breathing a little more pollution once the new factory opens.