Silentnight

HIG Europe spent £19 million acquiring the company, but in doing so, shelved some of the pension scheme rights for retired and current workers.

[14] Workers belonging to the Furniture, Timber and Allied Trades Union went out on strike from two of the Silentnight factories at the time, Barnoldswick and Sutton-in-Craven due to an increased demand by management upon production scales.

The union also claimed that an agreement had been reached whereby the workforce would not press for a pay rise provided the company did not enforce any redundancies.

[17] Whilst the strike was discussed at length in Parliament[18] and it was noted for its generally passive nature, there were incidents of rock throwing and one notable event when the strikers' caravan was firebombed.

[19] The chief executive at the time was Tom Clarke, the company's founder, who was a supporter of the Conservative Party and friend of Margaret Thatcher, who gave him the nickname of Mr Wonderful.

Many jobs from the closed Keighley factory were transferred to Sunderland, but this plant was sold off as a management buyout under the Stag Furniture brand in June 2005.

[28] During the period of ownership by HIG both turnover and profits have increased markedly, after the initial management clear-out and implementations of the turn round plan.