By Bruce Robbins

DUNDEE’S INDUSTRIAL fortunes suffered yet another savage blow last night when almost 50 workers at electrical contractors DH Morris were made redundant after the company was forced to call in the receivers.

Staff at the Dudhope Terrace depot were said to be “shell-shocked” at the news, which had come as a complete surprise.

The Dundee operation was said by one employee to have been trading successfully for years but it emerged that a black hole in the company’s finances at its four other offices in Scotland and one in the north of England had been so large and unexpected that recovery was simply not possible.

Receivers Colin Dempster and Tom Burton of Ernst & Young immediately made 405 of the company’s 471 employees redundant. That included 48 at the Dundee office which, according to one worker, employs around 80 people in total. The receivership affected all 13 firms in the DH Morris Group.

The receivers said that DH Morris, founded in Dundee 80 years ago, had not known exactly how big its trading deficit had been.

A comprehensive review of contracts across the group found that the losses were much larger than originally thought, running into “several millions.”

In a statement, Mr Dempster said, “This in turn has led to a substantial increase in the business’ funding requirement which the company have been unable to meet.”

Mr Dempster added, “It is unfortunate that we have had to make these job cuts to a long-established business but the company has been trading at a loss that cannot be sustained.”

The company had been operating largely as a sub-contractor. The news of the receivers’ appointment would have automatically led to other firms cancelling their contracts with DH Morris, thus making it impossible for the receivers to sell the business as a going concern.

The company’s other offices in Inverness, Edinburgh, Cumbernauld, Beith and Stockton in England are expected to close. A small number of staff are being retained in Dundee for administrative purposes until that office also closes for good.

DH Morris Group, originally founded in Dundee but now with its headquarters in Cumbernauld, was a long-established electrical contracting business that had been operating in Scotland since 1926.

In recent years, the group also started to provide mechanical services.

Just over two years ago, the company won over £18 million worth of “prestigious contracts.”

At the time, group managing director Eddie McMurray said that the contracts, “allied to our specialist long-term partnership contracts with major oil and water companies, place the group in a very strong trading position for the foreseeable future.”

One employee at the Dundee office said yesterday, “The Dundee division has been doing well for years but obviously there have been operating problems elsewhere in the group.

“The news was a complete shock to the staff. We never saw it coming at all. I have been here a long time as have many others but it looks like it’s all over now.”