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COURIER OPINION: Dundee textiles firm’s collapse show pressures businesses are facing

As Dundee textiles firm Bonar Yarns enters administration, other companies across Tayside and Fife are also facing challenging times.

exterior of Bonar Yarns premises.
Textile company Bonar Yarns' Caldrum Works in St Salvador Street, Dundee. Image: Google Maps.

The collapse of Dundee technical textiles firm Bonar Yarns is a heavy blow for the city’s manufacturing base.

While continuing to operate as the administrators weigh up the options for the business, it remains a bleak day for the firm, its 61 employees and their families.

Only time will tell whether a positive outcome can be achieved. But Bonar’s struggles simply underline the challenges so many companies are facing as they try to keep the wolf from the door.

weaving machinery at the Bonar Yarns plant
Employees at Dundee textile firm Bonar Yarns are facing an uncertain future. Image: Bonar Yarns.

The Bonar Yarns’ story goes back more than a century.

It has gone through rocky times in the past and has had to flex and adapt its approach as market conditions have prevailed.

The decision to bring in the administrators just three years on from a management buy-out is a sad moment.

But it is also a reflection of the times.

Last week, The Courier hosted a business conference in Dundee which brought together more than 100 local company leaders.

Delegates pondered how the business sector could not only survive Brexit, Covid, a drop in disposable incomes and the energy crisis, but thrive despite it all.

It was a positive session with lots of practical learnings. But no one in the room was under any illusion as to how rocky the road ahead might be.

These are tough times we are living through. And the reality is that some good and long-standing businesses will not make it.

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