Sessions of York staff sent home yesterday: sources

Phones were not being answered at the factory today and both local press reports and industry sources have claimed that staff were sent home as soon as administrators P & A Partnership were called in yesterday.

The Sheffield-based administrator was also unavailable for comment this morning but is understood to be onsite at the 200-year-old company, which had turnover of around £6m.

It is looking to sell the business as a whole or in a combination of its three divisions: self adhesive labels, commercial print and labelling machinery.

Other label printers are understood to be reviewing their options regarding the company.

Sheffield-based P & A Partnership has recent experience in the labels industry. It was the administrator for Derby-based barcode and serial number label firm AC Labels during March and, in April, sold the company to Mercian Labels.

According to a statement yesterday afternoon from Mark Sessions, the company’s owner, a major pension deficit and rising paper prices, aggravated by the weakness of the pound, had made business impossible.

This week’s collapse of the business comes ten months after Mark Sessions publicly put the business up for sale.

Comments left by ex-employees on packagingnews.co.uk indicate the industry’s sadness to see one of its oldest companies go into administration.

One, Paul Mitchelson, said: “A very sad day indeed. I had some happy years at Sessions and Mark Sessions is an outstanding individual who will be devasted at this turn of events.”

Mark Sessions did not respond to emails from Packaging News this morning.

200 YEARS OF HISTORY

1811 – Quaker William Alexander founds bookselling and stationery shop in York and starts printing two years later.

1839-1865 – company owned by four other Quaker businessmen.

1865 – company bought by William Sessions, a 22-year-old Quaker and grocer.

1907 – William Sessions’ son, also William, closes the shop to concentrate on printing business.

1914-1918 – Labels work grows to a national business during First World War.

1938 – William Kaye Sessions, Mark Sessions’ father, joins business.

1960′s – Machinery business formed to design and manufacture labelling machines.

June 2009 – Business put up for sale.

April 2010 – Sessions of York put into administration, blaming high paper costs and the recession.

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