Troubled Times for Mountain Marathon Sponsors
Rob / 16.03.2004
First Lowe Alpine announced they will be closing down much of their UK operation, based at Kendal in the Lake District, with up to 50 staff losing their jobs by July 1st. The Italian parent company Asolo is reorganising and moving many of the jobs to their base at Treviso near Venice, to save duplication and reduce costs.
However, while accounting, international marketing and clothing design will all move to Italy there will still be an office in Kendal running UK and Ireland marketing (and the pack design team will remain there also). This means the staff most directly responsible for the mountain marathon sponsorship are among the lucky ones to keep their jobs.
This bad news was soon followed by more from Karrimor HQ in Accrington. After months of rumour of financial difficulties South African owners Cullanan put the company into receivership and it was bought for 4m within a few hours by Lonsdale Sports of London. Events continued to move quickly then, with 23 staff fired and many of the shops Karrimor owned being sold off. (Field and Trek were among the buyers.)
Karrimor International is a very well known brand with a global reputation, but it’s unclear at this early stage what the future might be for the company. As far as the race is concerned there is an on-going contract for sponsorship for a further 5 years, which passes to the new owners.
The mountain marathon is very closely associated with Karrimor, who have been sole sponsor’s throughout it’s 35 year history, but the race (and the KimmLite product range) are both independently owned and operated by Mountain Marathon Sales Ltd.
MMS is run by Mike Parsons and Jen Longbottom, the brother and sister who ran Karrimor at the height of the company’s success. Until it was sold in 1996 it was a family business, which they’d taken on after their parents began it by manufacturing rucksacks from their cycle shop in Rosendale.
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