AO Arena and Bridgewater Hall operator made almost 1,000 people redundant in Covid pandemic

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

The group that operates Manchester's AO Arena and Bridgewater Hall made almost 1,000 people redundant during the Covid-19 pandemic and lost over £8m, it has been revealed.

SMG Europe Holdings, which trades under the ASM Global brand, said it "had to made a number of redundancies to help arrest the ongoing level of cost in the business".

The Manchester-headquartered group employed 2,111 members of staff in 2019, a figure that reduced to 1,668 in 2020 and again to 1,120 in 2021, according to new documents seen by the Manchester Evening News.

The company said the furlough scheme was a "major lifeline" for the business and had reduced the number of redundancies it made.