A CI Traders manager has told how he lost his job only 52 hours after the company’s takeover by private equity firm Sandpiper CI last year.
John Garton, who had worked for Le Riches supermarkets for 14 years, told an employment tribunal yesterday that the UK buyers ‘could not get me out of the door fast enough’ when they took over the company in August 2007.
He said that he was not the only senior manager to lose his job, with six out of eight of his peers also being shown the door in the weeks following the £230m takeover of CI Traders.
Mr Garton, who was business development manager at the company, says that Sandpiper quickly moved another employee into his job, which meant that they did not have grounds to make him redundant.
But cross-examining Mr Garton yesterday, Advocate Tony Olsen, acting for Sandpiper, said that his job no longer existed at Sandpiper. The advocate disputed that another employee, named as Peter Clark, had been given a business development role inside the company.
The tribunal will continue on 19 May, when witnesses for both Mr Garton and Sandpiper will give evidence. Sandpiper will also give their version of events on that date.
Article posted on 25th April, 2008 - 12.00am
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