The present manufacturing unit for Tuckland’s outdoor footwear in Tefalla, Spain, is to close down, and Tuckland Footwear will cease its activities after the regional investment company that owns it declared that the business is no longer viable. Rather than die out, the Tuckland brand may be bought up by another Spanish company in the footwear segment.
Nafinco, a public financing body of the region of Navarra that owns Tuckland, announced the closure as losses spiraled to an accumulated €8.7 million at the beginning of this year. The state fund has invested over €10 million in the past few years to keep the business afloat, and has not managed to find other investors for the company because of the state of its finances.
There were 28 permanent employees at Tuckland Footwear’s manufacturing unit, as well as 10 temporary staff. It was to save these jobs that the local public body first stepped in three years ago after the former owner, Juan Redín at Tecal 40, declared insolvency and creditors approved the public takeover. Efforts to restructure the enterprise and increase its profitability have evidently been to no effect; the company needed to produce 210,000 pairs of boots in 2007 but only managed 115,000 pairs.
The manufacture of the Tuckland brand, which was created in 1934, has continued to be carried out in Spain despite rising costs. Loiter and Eya are two other brands of safety footwear in the company’s portfolio. Tuckland’s main zones of influence are the Basque country and Navarra, where its products are distributed in the specialty segment. Its manufacturing unit was one of only three in Spain that has a license to use Gore-Tex membranes.
Tecal 40 is part of a bigger industrial group that also includes Solano 2000, a manufacturer of footwear soles. Nafinco took over management at Solano at the same time, before selling it off to José Rudiéz, owner of Suelas Karey, who has now split manufacture of the soles between his Navarran and Moroccan production units.
