Company dissolved because of Brexit: Mr Kelly wants a new start in Germany

“The costs went through the roof”: For the British entrepreneur Kelly, Brexit was a blow – it meant the end of his company. Now he’s starting over again at 62 – in Germany.

On Monday morning the moment to say goodbye came. A neighbor came to the front door to wish Mike Kelly all the best. Kelly turns his back on England that day, January 30.

“The costs have gone through the roof”

As the owner of Focus Metals Ltd, the graduate engineer was his own boss up until now. Among other things, he has done business for four German companies in Great Britain, the USA and Mexico, and has traded in small tubes and the finest tubes required for the manufacture of medical devices, in car production and in the aerospace industry.

Brexit was a real blow to the Brit. “For me, it meant that the costs really went through the roof,” says Kelly. For example, sending a package that used to cost 70 euros now costs over 400 euros. The logistics companies would have the administrative effort paid for, and then there would be fees on top of that. “This is called the Brexit surcharge.”

Sales went down

At the same time, Kelly lost orders. Brexit cost him 10 to 15 percent of his sales, he says. Losses that he could not make up for because many companies have relocated their business to the EU.

The supply chains stopped working as a result of Brexit and neither did Kelly’s trade as a result. His own business was doing so badly that he had to work part-time in supermarkets. Three days a week – including weekends – he stocked shelves at Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s well into the night. “That should get me over the Brexit shock,” he says.

The consequences are only now really being felt

But he lost that fight. In the meantime, not only is his company at the end, but also his marriage. The extra burden that Brexit brought was too much for the couple. Now the divorce is pending, the house is being sold, the Focus Metals company is being wound up.

Kelly fears others will experience the same fate as him. “With the pandemic, in which everyone received 80 percent of their salary as short-time work benefits, Brexit didn’t really hit Great Britain at all,” he is convinced. Only now would the consequences really be felt.

The British Chamber of Commerce cannot say how many companies have gone bankrupt as a result of Brexit. According to a survey, however, 61 percent of the companies surveyed do less or even significantly less trade with the European Union, and 14 percent have stopped trading with the EU altogether.

New job, soon new passport

At the age of 62, Kelly is now starting a new life. It goes to Germany. He becomes sales manager at the medium-sized company Eugen Geyer, for which he has already worked in the past. Tomorrow is his first day at work. He also wants to apply for a German passport in the near future. Since he has a German mother, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Mike Kelly had imagined the last few years before retirement very differently. Nevertheless, he is grateful that he can still find work. And after everything that failed for him in England, he also wants a real fresh start.