More than 10,000 staff will lose their jobs at troubled UK household goods outfit Wilko, administrators said Monday.
Last-ditch talks on a rescue deal with the owner of the HMV music store chain collapsed.
Canadian businessman Doug Putman had been in talks with administrators PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to buy some 200 shops operated by Wilko, which went bust in August.
But both Putman and PwC said that those discussions to rescue it as a going concern had reached an end — despite having backing from Wilko management, staff and PwC — as it was revealed that as many as 10,196 extra employees face the axe.
PwC had recently announced that more than 1,600 staff would be made redundant.
“The joint administrators have explored all potential opportunities to save the business,” PwC said in a statement on Monday.
“Despite extensive efforts, it has become clear that no significant part of the Wilko operations can be rescued as a going concern.
“As a result, the joint administrators have today informed all staff that they will sadly commence the closure of all Wilko stores, the two distribution centres and the cessation of the majority of activities of the support centre.”
The statement noted that all shops are set to be closed by early October, resulting in 9,100 redundancies of store employees.
Distribution centre operations are expected to shutter on Friday, with “the majority” of its 886 remaining employees made redundant then.
Administrators said further lay-offs of 210 remaining support centre staff will also occur before early October as operations wind down.
B&M European Value Retail has agreed to a GBP13-million ($16.3-million) deal to buy 51 Wilko stores, but without saying how jobs in those operations would be affected.
According to administrators, those stores will close and reopen under B&M’s branding.
Wilko, which operated some 400 stores across the UK and online, announced its collapse on August 10. It blamed stubbornly high inflation and interest rates affecting businesses and consumers.
