Birmingham Mint closes its doors

Birmingham Mint made euro coins

The Birmingham Mint, the world's oldest private coin maker, has closed its doors.

The struggling firm, which first began turning out coins in 1794, ceased trading with immediate effect on Thursday.

Administrators KPMG Corporate Recovery, which took over the Mint two months ago, said the remaining assets at the Hockley-based site would now be sold off.

The move follows the Mint's loss of major contracts which resulted in cash-flow problems.

We have tried to secure a sale to allow the business to continue, but unfortunately, none of the interested parties were in a position to complete a deal

Joint administrator Mark Orton

More than 50 redundancies were announced in March and a further 28 jobs went in April.

Joint administrator Mark Orton said: "Clearly, we very much regret having to take this decision to close the Birmingham Mint.

"We have tried to secure a sale to allow the business to continue, but unfortunately, none of the interested parties were in a position to complete a deal.

"In the absence of any other viable bids, we have today (Thursday) concluded a sale of a small number of assets and we will now seek buyers for the remaining assets on site."

Hostile bid

Birmingham Mint had employed more than 100 and was one of the largest makers of blank euro coins.

It also produced Polish zloty and Venezuelan pesos.

However trade fell after the Royal Mint pulled out of a business agreement, which cost the Birmingham coin maker thousands of pounds.

The Birmingham Mint was bought by IMI in 1991 for £13m and passed into the hands of venture capital firm 3i seven years later.

It was then bought out by its management, headed by former chief executive Roland Vernon, in 2001.