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back to article Dixons Carphone bye-bye'd 800 staff since merger

Some 800 UK staffers have been made redundant or put at risk of redundancy since the mega merger between Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Retail, The Channel can reveal. This includes 400 staff at Dixons’ Hemel Hempstead-based HQ that did not want to relocate to Carphone’s equivalent office in Acton, a driving distance of a …

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  1. paulf
    Facepalm

    FTA: "This includes 400 staff at Dixons’ Hemel Hempstead-based HQ that did not want to relocate to Carphone’s equivalent office in Acton, a driving distance of a little over 25 miles."

    It might be "only" 25 miles, but have you tried to drive south from Hemel to Central London in the morning? It isn't going to be a 20 min pop down the M1 at 70 mph that's for sure!

    FTA: "One insider told us the costs of revamping the dusty old Hemel building was considered too high, and Acton has a larger footfall so has more room for expansion."

    I thought the Hemel building was badly damaged by the Buncefield explosion in 2005? Anyway I would expect a building in Hemel to be cheaper than one in Acton.

    Also "larger footfall" doesn't imply more space for expansion.

    5 0 Reply
    1. DavCrav
      Reply Icon
      Facepalm

      "I thought the Hemel building was badly damaged by the Buncefield explosion in 2005? Anyway I would expect a building in Hemel to be cheaper than one in Acton."

      Not if, as you suggest, it was "badly damaged"...

      1 0 Reply
      1. paulf
        Reply Icon
        Mushroom

        @DavCrav "Not if, as you suggest, it was "badly damaged"..."

        I would like to think the Buncefield damage (and consequent expenses for disruption to business etc) would have been covered either by insurance or by compensation from HOSL.

        @Sir Barry

        ISTR a building with all the windows blown out with the commentary mumbling something about Dixons; so my memory probably confused "badly damaged" with "significant superficial damage, but structural integrity maintained"

        Icon: Buncefield

        0 0 Reply
    2. Sir Barry
      Reply Icon

      "I thought the Hemel building was badly damaged by the Buncefield explosion in 2005?"

      At that point I worked for Dixons based in building 4 and whilst the buildings* were damaged "badly" is a bit of an overstatement.

      *In 2005 Dixons had 3 buildings in a cluster housing around 2000 people, office space was a little cramped, but there were two restaurants and two shops. I don't know if any of that has changed as I left in 2006.

      1 0 Reply
  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    DixonsCarphone are actually proposing to redevelop their Acton site and move to a new one "in the immediate vicinity":

    http://www.oneportalway.com/public_exhibition_nov_2.pdf

    0 0 Reply
  3. illiad

    other shops are closer... :)

    PCworld and currys have shops much closer in hemel, to say nothing about other hardware stores... :)

    0 0 Reply
    1. DavCrav
      Reply Icon

      Re: other shops are closer... :)

      "PCworld and currys have shops much closer in hemel"

      Both of which are part of Dixons Group, or at least were the last time I checked.

      0 0 Reply
      1. illiad
        Reply Icon

        Re: other shops are closer... :)

        yes, but no news of them closing yet!!! :)

        0 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A hundred heads here. A hundred heads there

    Sooner or later you'll end up exploiting real synergies.

    0 0 Reply
  5. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Drain circling exercises

    My wife (not the most price-savvy consumer) was in Carphone Whorehouse a couple of days ago and commented afterwards that most of the prices for everything except phone contracts were ridiculous compared with shopping on Amazon.

    With non-techies realising that kind of thing, I give DixCarGroup about 18 months before they realise they need to dump another 50% of staff.

    0 0 Reply

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