British parcel firm City Link axes over 2300 jobs

The British parcel delivery firm City Link, which went into administration on Christmas Eve, announced on New Year's Eve that it would be cutting 2,356 jobs.
The company's administrators from Ernst & Young also said in a statement on Wednesday that 371 employees would be kept on to deal with remaining parcels, help sell off assets and wind down operations.
"It is with regret that we have to announce substantial redundancies," Hunter Kelly, one of the administrators, said in the statement.
Dashing trade union hopes of a last-minute rescue bid, it also said a consortium wanting to buy the company had "offered no money up front and significantly undervalued the assets to be acquired".
The administrators said earlier that the company had been hit by intense competition, changing market needs and difficulties in cost-cutting.
The announcement of the bankruptcy came on Christmas Day, prompting angry reactions from trade unions.
"This is the bitterest blow any group of workers could receive on Christmas Day," said Mike Cash, general secretary of the RMT trade union.
"It is absolutely shocking that the company have sprung this announcement once all the Christmas deliveries have been completed," he said.
The company's website said it began delivering parcels in 1969 and had an annual turnover of £300 million (382 million euros, $467 million).
But Kelly said it had suffered "substantial losses over several years" and had "all but used up" a £40-million investment made in 2013.
The founder of City Link's parent company, Better Capital, has apologised for the firm's collapse but said it was "not mishandled".
Jon Moulton, a veteran venture capitalist, also defended the payment of redundancies through a taxpayer-funded scheme saying that City Link had "paid a fortune" in taxes.